tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/black-politics-40709/articlesBlack politics – The Conversation2022-11-17T13:27:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1947752022-11-17T13:27:55Z2022-11-17T13:27:55ZA brief history of Georgia’s runoff voting – and how this year’s contest between two Black men is a sign of progress<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495703/original/file-20221116-24-sa3q0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=354%2C0%2C2640%2C1908&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former President Barack Obama raises hands with Stacey Abrams and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock at a Oct. 28, 2022, campaign event in Georgia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-president-barack-obama-raises-hands-with-democratic-news-photo/1244303190?phrase=raphael%20warnock&adppopup=true">Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the U.S., all elections are administered by the states. But not all states use the same rules. </p>
<p>Georgia uses a version of <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Runoff_election">runoff voting</a>, which entails two rounds of voting. Typically, if a candidate wins more than 50% of the votes in the first round, that candidate is declared the winner. If not, the two candidates with the most first-round votes face off in a second round of voting.</p>
<p>There’s historically been concern that such a runoff system disadvantages Black candidates. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney General <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-10-mn-191-story.html">John R. Dunne</a> once argued that Georgia’s runoff voting system has had “a demonstrably chilling effect on the ability of Blacks to become candidates for public office.”</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/james-clyburn-runoff-elections-voting-rights/2020/12/22/2eb0827e-446c-11eb-b0e4-0f182923a025_story.html">James E. Clyburn</a> of South Carolina similarly argues that runoff voting has “purposefully diluted Black votes” and has been successful at “keeping Black candidates from reaching elected office.”</p>
<p>Yet on Dec. 6, 2022, Georgians will vote in a runoff election between Democratic incumbent <a href="https://warnockforgeorgia.com">Raphael Warnock</a> and Republican challenger <a href="https://www.teamherschel.com">Herschel Walker</a> – both of whom are African American men. </p>
<p>So, is runoff voting <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-georgias-runoff-voting-and-its-racist-roots-150356">racist</a>? Or isn’t it?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two Black men and and a Black woman are standing in voting booths as they cast their ballots." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495740/original/file-20221116-12-hbu4xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495740/original/file-20221116-12-hbu4xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495740/original/file-20221116-12-hbu4xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495740/original/file-20221116-12-hbu4xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495740/original/file-20221116-12-hbu4xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495740/original/file-20221116-12-hbu4xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495740/original/file-20221116-12-hbu4xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Community members voting in Atlanta on Nov. 8, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/community-members-arrive-to-their-local-polling-location-to-news-photo/1244607986?phrase=georgia%20voters%20midterms&adppopup=true">Megan Varner/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A brief history of runoff voting in Georgia</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/county-unit-system">1917</a>, Georgia adopted the “county unit system,” which was a way of voting that operated <a href="http://rbrl.blogspot.com/2011/10/county-unit-system-eh.html">similarly</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-the-electoral-college-exist-and-how-does-it-work-5-essential-reads-149502">the way the U.S. Electoral College works</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.usa.gov/election">For presidential elections</a>, each state is allocated a number of electoral votes <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-is-the-american-president-elected-67632">based on</a> the size of its congressional delegation, which in turn is partially based on its population. As such, more populous states have more electoral votes than less populous states. </p>
<p>Similarly, under <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/106591296101400409">Georgia’s county unit system</a>, more populous counties were allocated more votes in statewide elections than less populous counties. Each county’s votes were then awarded to whoever won that particular county.</p>
<p>The Electoral College gives <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-could-replace-the-electoral-college-138769">proportionately more power</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/electoral-college-benefits-whiter-states-study-shows-142600">less populous states</a>. Similarly, the county unit system <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/county-unit-system/">favored less populous counties</a>, while more populous counties were underrepresented.</p>
<p>This was particularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-disputed-election-delivered-3-governors-to-georgia-at-the-same-time-147816">harmful to the influence of African American voters</a>, who largely lived in the more populous <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-28/black-majority-cities-are-increasing-in-number">urban</a> counties.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/372/368.html">1963</a>, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the county unit system unconstitutional, as it violated the standard of “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/one-person_one-vote_rule">one person, one vote</a>.” </p>
<p>In response, Georgian legislators began looking for a new electoral system that could similarly, yet legally, <a href="https://www.insider.com/georgia-runoff-law-jim-crow-segregationist-denmark-groover">suppress the African American vote</a>. Later that year, <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/denmark-groover-1922-2001/m-10807/">Denmark Groover</a>, a <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/denmark-groover-1922-2001/">member</a> of the Georgia House of Representatives, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/tellingallamericansstories/upload/CivilRights_VotingRights.pdf">proposed</a> the adoption of runoff voting, as it “would again provide protection which … was removed with the death of the county unit system.”</p>
<p>The most common voting system used in the U.S. is <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Plurality_voting_system">plurality voting</a>, in which the winner of an election is the candidate who receives the most votes. A potential downside of this system is that, if a lot of candidates are running for one office and the vote is split several ways, the candidate with the highest number of votes may have a relatively low percentage of the overall vote, winning with a plurality, not a majority. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27893308?seq=1">The fear among many white Georgians</a> was that if elections were left to plurality voting, the white vote could be split among several different candidates. If African Americans all voted for a Black candidate, that person could end up winning the election with the most votes overall, even if their winning percentage was relatively low.</p>
<p>To prevent this, Groover and his allies <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/10/us/us-files-suit-against-georgia-charging-bias-in-election-laws.html">pushed for the adoption of runoff voting</a> as an opportunity to “prevent the Negro bloc vote from controlling the elections.” </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/tellingallamericansstories/upload/CivilRights_VotingRights.pdf">1964</a>, Georgia lawmakers adopted Groover’s proposal.</p>
<h2>Runoff voting is popular across the world</h2>
<p>Runoff voting has been around for a while, and it has been used in a variety of contexts. <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-03856-8">Germany</a> began experimenting with this type of voting in the late 1800s, after which it spread to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0010414018762369">Norway</a> in 1906, and then <a href="https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/is-there-proportional-representation-in-france/">France</a> in 1928. Runoff voting <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/9897/chapter/12#422">was later adopted by</a> several former French colonies after they obtained independence. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, several more newly independent countries decided to embrace the system.</p>
<p>Today, runoff voting is used in more than 40 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.</p>
<p>In addition to Georgia, several other U.S. states also use runoff voting in some capacity, <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/primary-runoffs.aspx">including</a> Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Vermont. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Top-two_primary">top-two primary</a> used in California, Nebraska and Washington, as well as Louisiana’s <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/louisiana-uses-a-jungle-primary-for-its-elections-what-does-that-mean">so-called</a> “<a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Jungle_primary">jungle primary</a>,” are also variations of runoff voting.</p>
<p>Alaska, Maine and several cities around the country have recently adopted <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-ranked-choice-voting-a-political-scientist-explains-165055">ranked choice voting</a>. This system is sometimes referred to as “<a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/instant-runoff">instant runoff voting</a>,” because it too can be viewed as a type of runoff voting.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vXXZBEkAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar</a> of voting systems, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2018.1499622">I have found</a> that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243094">runoff voting</a> tends <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262026">to produce better policies</a>. This is because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217650">runoff elections often favor candidates who lean to the center</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00323187.2018.1560590">center-leaning candidates seem to be more likely to respect human rights</a> and provide better representation of a larger portion of the electorate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black man dressed in a suit stands behind a microphone as he gives a campaign speech." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495719/original/file-20221116-18-wepfv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495719/original/file-20221116-18-wepfv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495719/original/file-20221116-18-wepfv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495719/original/file-20221116-18-wepfv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495719/original/file-20221116-18-wepfv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495719/original/file-20221116-18-wepfv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495719/original/file-20221116-18-wepfv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker, a Republican, speaks to supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump during a GOP rally on March 26, 2022, in Commerce, Ga.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/heisman-trophy-winner-and-republican-candidate-for-us-news-photo/1239537207?phrase=herschel%20walker%20trump&adppopup=true">Megan Varner/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A sign of progress</h2>
<p>In a 1984 deposition, <a href="https://www.mupress.org/Macon-Black-and-White-An-Unutterable-Separation-In-the-American-Century-P569.aspx">Groover candidly testified</a> that he was “a segregationist” who “had many prejudices” and he didn’t “mind admitting it.” Although Groover was a racist, and although he pushed for runoff voting in Georgia for racist reasons, this does not mean that runoff voting as a system is inherently racist.</p>
<p>Rather, it shows how people can be racist.</p>
<p>If preventing a minority candidate from winning is the primary concern for a majority of voters, then runoff voting will prevent minority candidates from winning. </p>
<p>Before <a href="https://theconversation.com/rev-raphael-warnocks-historic-us-senate-win-broke-more-barriers-than-you-may-think-154120">Warnock’s historic victory</a> in 2021, Georgia had elected not a single African American U.S. senator, governor, lieutenant governor or secretary of state in either a runoff or a general election.</p>
<p>The fact that Warnock is now facing off against Walker, another African American man, suggests that preventing a minority candidate from winning is no longer the primary concern for a majority of Georgian voters. Rather than race, it seems that <a href="https://theconversation.com/abortion-is-not-influencing-most-voters-as-the-midterms-approach-economic-issues-are-predominating-in-new-survey-191836">other concerns</a> now guide most Georgians’ voting. </p>
<p>In a sense, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-midterms-five-reasons-why-the-election-results-matter-194007">regardless of who wins</a>, Georgians can be proud that the state seems to be taking a small step toward a future in which <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety">the content of one’s character matters more than the color of one’s skin</a> – and one in which a voting method originally passed to bar Black people from public office seems now to have failed in its goal.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story incorporates material from an earlier story <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-georgias-runoff-voting-and-its-racist-roots-150356">published on Nov. 23, 2020</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Holzer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Runoff elections in Georgia have a racist past, but the contest between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker for US Senate is a sign of progress.Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1522012021-02-03T15:51:46Z2021-02-03T15:51:46ZHow ‘Uncle Tom’ still impacts racial politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381189/original/file-20210128-13-f8xgsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C32%2C534%2C405&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bill Robinson dancing with Shirley Temple in 'The Little Colonel.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Colonel_(1935_film)#/media/File:Bill_Robinson_and_Shirley_Temple_stair_dance_(cropped).jpg">(20th Century Fox)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Published nearly 170 years ago, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/322385/uncle-toms-cabin-by-harriet-beecher-stowe/9780140390032"><em>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</em> by Harriet Beecher Stowe</a> had a profound impact on American slavery. But Uncle Tom is not a relic from the 19th century: this complex figure still has a hold over Black politics. In fact, the Uncle Tom stereotype is quite possibly the most resilient figure in American history. He has survived pandemics, lived through 33 presidents (including President Joe Biden), and remains the most recognizable Black character in history.</p>
<p>While most people know that Uncle Tom is the titular character of <em>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</em>, few people know how and why this literary character has transformed since his initial appearance. <a href="https://chbooks.com/Books/U/Uncle">Why is Uncle Tom still alive in the 21st century?</a> </p>
<h2>Stowe’s Uncle Tom</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381816/original/file-20210201-21-13bolt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381816/original/file-20210201-21-13bolt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381816/original/file-20210201-21-13bolt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381816/original/file-20210201-21-13bolt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381816/original/file-20210201-21-13bolt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381816/original/file-20210201-21-13bolt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381816/original/file-20210201-21-13bolt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381816/original/file-20210201-21-13bolt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The book cover for ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Penguin)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The bestselling novel of the 19th century, and the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-nineteenthcentury-american-womens-writing/69C42A21FFA8CF5ED3A004D2EE87620E">second bestselling book of that century (after the Bible)</a>, <em>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</em> first appeared in the United States in 1851 as a serialized work of fiction published one chapter at a time, in the <em>National Era</em>, a weekly abolitionist newspaper edited by Gamaliel Bailey. </p>
<p>Today, we do not necessarily think of novels as shaping national identity. However, in 19th-century America, Stowe’s vision of Uncle Tom constructed a form of Black manhood that deeply impacted the nation. Despite being ripped from his wife and children, chained and sent off in a coffle with other enslaved men and women, let down by even a “good master,” and beaten, finally to death, Uncle Tom does not ever speak ill of anyone. He is loyal, passive in the midst of white violence and dies as a martyr. </p>
<p>Since then, various Black men have been called “Uncle Toms.” From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to former president Barack Obama, at some point, they were accused of being <a href="https://face2faceafrica.com/article/do-you-know-why-malcolm-x-called-mlk-an-uncle-tom">too passive</a> or a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/nov/30/obama-white-house-barackobama">sell-out</a> to the race. </p>
<h2>Legalized rights did not translate to reality</h2>
<p>In the 1896 landmark case, <em><a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson">Plessy vs. Ferguson</a></em>, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that African Americans had access to the legal system, equal to that of whites, but they had to maintain separate institutions to facilitate these rights. The ruling institutionalized a racial hierarchy that placed whites at the top and Black people at the bottom in nearly every facet of public life. </p>
<p>To live in North America meant that one had to choose not only between racial loyalty and disloyalty, but also between life and death. Survival meant performing servile roles as Uncles and Mammies, in public or on the job. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381814/original/file-20210201-13-1m01lx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381814/original/file-20210201-13-1m01lx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381814/original/file-20210201-13-1m01lx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381814/original/file-20210201-13-1m01lx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381814/original/file-20210201-13-1m01lx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381814/original/file-20210201-13-1m01lx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381814/original/file-20210201-13-1m01lx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chicago, Illinois. Pullman porter at the Union Station.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8d24965/">(Jack Delano/Library of Congress/FSA/OWI Collection)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this environment, Black people were forced to acquiesce to the white public’s desire to perpetuate the servile relations of slavery. Black men and women who violated these <a href="https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm">Jim Crow</a> norms risked their homes, jobs and lives. </p>
<p>For survival in a racially segregated environment, <a href="http://www.paulwagnerfilms.com/miles-of-smiles-about-porters/">the Pullman sleeping car porters</a>, for instance, Black men who were employed on the railways of North America, had to perform the role of, and were measured against the image of, a servile Uncle Tom.</p>
<p>In Canada, the only reference for Uncle Tom is at <a href="https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/en/properties/uncle-toms-cabin">Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site</a>. The former home of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-josiah-henson-real-inspiration-uncle-toms-cabin-180969094/">Rev. Josiah Henson, who lived from 1789–1883,</a> has been turned into a museum to showcase Henson’s life, as founder of the Dawn Settlement in Dresden, Ont., for fugitive African Americans. Stowe’s novel was loosely based on Henson’s biography, <em><a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/henson49/henson49.html">The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada</a></em> published in 1849. The museum documents Henson’s life but also reaffirms his connection to Stowe’s Uncle Tom. </p>
<p>The insatiable appetite of the white North American public for a docile, symbolically emasculated Black male archetype and the Uncle Tom controversies that follows them, speaks profoundly to how monumentally resistant to change this character has been. </p>
<h2>From servant to sellout</h2>
<p>In the decades following the novel, Uncle Tom transformed into a stereotype of Black masculinity characterized by docility, castrated sexuality, a happy-to-please-whites attitude with a safe, child-like essence, at the same time. Shirley Temple’s blond ringlets paired with <a href="https://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/02/prweb11548760.htm">Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s</a> soft-shoe routine in their “buddy” films of the 1930s is one example of the cinematic repackaging of Stowe’s Uncle Tom and his child-patron, <a href="http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/childrn/knowleshp.html">Little Eva</a>.</p>
<p>The servile Uncle Tom has been reproduced in Joel Chandler Harris’ <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/uncle-remus-tales">Uncle Remus</a> tales published in the 1880s, later adapted by Disney for <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/song-of-the-south-disney-you-must-remember-this/"><em>Song of the South</em></a>. Uncle Tom also became a feature at blackface minstrel shows known as “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-josiah-henson-real-inspiration-uncle-toms-cabin-180969094/">Tom shows</a>.” Later, he mutated into commodity spokespersons such as Rastus the Cream of Wheat trademark and Uncle Ben. </p>
<p>The concept of the sellout Uncle Tom, however, is characterized by the idea of a Black man who appears only interested in serving whites, the government, corporations or “the system” generally. The insult is meant to connote that these men, these “Uncle Toms” will ensure that white needs come before the needs of both the Black community and themselves. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381817/original/file-20210201-19-19dfora.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381817/original/file-20210201-19-19dfora.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381817/original/file-20210201-19-19dfora.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381817/original/file-20210201-19-19dfora.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381817/original/file-20210201-19-19dfora.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381817/original/file-20210201-19-19dfora.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381817/original/file-20210201-19-19dfora.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381817/original/file-20210201-19-19dfora.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s new book, ‘Uncle: Race, Nostalgia and the Politics of Loyalty.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Coach House)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Men (or the fictionalized characters of men) who have faced accusations of being a sellout Uncle Tom include the film roles of actors like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/oct/08/features.burhanwazir">Sidney Poitier</a> and, later, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/11/05/cosby-show-black-or-white/4ad8e415-b493-4970-b888-c35811288515/">Bill Cosby</a> during the height of his fame in the ‘70s and '80s, as well as <a href="https://theundefeated.com/features/was-chris-darden-a-race-traitor/">Christopher Darden</a> during the O.J. Simpson trial (not to mention O.J. himself), and even athletes like Tiger Woods. </p>
<p>Black people hate him, but it also seems we cannot live without him. The trope is especially brought up when it comes to political figures. Some political careers have been marred by Uncle Tom accusations. This includes people like <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/joy-reid-msnbc-racist-clarence-thomas-uncle-clarence-b1595058.html">Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas</a>, and more recently Kentucky’s Attorney General <a href="https://thepostmillennial.com/cnn-contributor-calls-kentucky-ag-uncle-tom-and-step-fetch-negro">Daniel Cameron</a>. </p>
<h2>Foils for Black social progress</h2>
<p>The challenges that are brought to contemporary Black men in positions of authority, power and prestige who are either in service to white institutions or become the public spokespersons for white companies are very real. </p>
<p>The reason these Black men are accused of Uncle Tomism is that communities suspect them of thwarting Black social progress. It is a reliable trope called upon during moments when a Black individual is perceived by the Black community as maligning the race in order to win favour with white authority and institutions. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381806/original/file-20210201-13-cnjs92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381806/original/file-20210201-13-cnjs92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381806/original/file-20210201-13-cnjs92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381806/original/file-20210201-13-cnjs92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381806/original/file-20210201-13-cnjs92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381806/original/file-20210201-13-cnjs92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381806/original/file-20210201-13-cnjs92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image of an old box of Uncle Ben’s rice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Mars)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond politics, we are surrounded with imagery of Black men who serve one purpose: to make the public (imagined as white) feel safe. They are useful only if they are clearly committed to the American way of life, which is to say consumer culture. From Uncle Remus there to sell white childhood innocence, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/business/media/30adco.html">Uncle Ben</a> to sell rice, and even Michael Jordan’s squeaky-clean image, this image of Black masculinity has had a firm grip on what it means to be a Black man in North American society. </p>
<p>Why can Uncle Tom not just fade from memory, as have so many other characters from other mid-19th-century novels?</p>
<p>Stowe may have created this character to support the abolition of slavery. However, through constant reinvention and reproduction, Uncle Tom will continue to exist if the Black community remains divided on how to live within a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2017/05/03/the-clear-connection-between-slavery-and-american-capitalism/?sh=63aba3ee7bd3">capitalist system built on slave labour</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/podcasts">Click here to listen to Don’t Call Me Resilient</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet this figure also reminds us to look deeper and to ask difficult questions about how we choose to relate to white society and its institutions. Uncle Tom will persist as long as anti-Blackness persists.</p>
<p><em>This article is adapted from Cheryl Thompson’s forthcoming book, 'Uncle: Race, Nostalgia and the Politics of Loyalty’ (Coach House Books).</em></p>
<p>Listen to Cheryl Thompson on Episode 1 of <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-in-a-word-how-to-confront-150-years-of-racial-stereotypes-podcast-episode-1-show-notes-153790"><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a>, a new podcast from The Conversation.</p>
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<p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321534/original/file-20200319-22606-q84y3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=1" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cheryl Thompson receives funding from the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ the best seller of the 19th century, is not a relic from the past. The complex Uncle Tom figure still has a hold over Black politics.Cheryl Thompson, Assistant Professor, Creative Industries, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/869702017-11-09T04:00:31Z2017-11-09T04:00:31ZCould Atlanta be on track to elect a white mayor?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193866/original/file-20171109-14167-2b7kxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Atlanta mayoral candidates Keisha Lance Bottoms (left) and Mary Norwood will face off in December.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/David Goldman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Nov. 7, none of the 12 candidates for mayor of Atlanta received more than 50 percent of the vote.</p>
<p>That means the two candidates with the most votes, Councilwomen Keisha Lance Bottoms and Mary Norwood, will face off in a Dec. 5 runoff. Lance Bottoms is black. Norwood is white.</p>
<p>Could 2017 be the year that Atlanta elects its first white mayor in more than a generation?</p>
<p>Going into the runoff, I anticipate that the African-American candidate, Councilwoman Lance Bottoms, has the advantage. She won the most votes on the first ballot, and black voters are still a force to be reckoned with in this city. Still, the race demonstrates the ways that changing urban demographics can alter the contours of political competition within historically black cities.</p>
<p>As majority black cities welcome increasing numbers of new, nonblack residents into their city limits, the probability that nonblacks will run for and win top leadership posts increases. However, it is important to realize that even under these conditions, African-Americans can and do win elections in jurisdictions where blacks comprise less than a majority of the population. </p>
<h2>Race to the runoff</h2>
<p>Until early October, polls showed that Mary Norwood had an early, consistent lead in a crowded field. Norwood is no stranger to Atlanta mayoral races. In 2009, she came within <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/us/10atlanta.html">714 votes</a> of beating now-incumbent Mayor Kasim Reed in a runoff.</p>
<p>In addition to Norwood, reporters were also following the trajectory of Peter Aman, the city’s former chief operating officer, who is also white. Aman emerged from obscurity in the early polls to become a contender, leading some to speculate that it was quite possible that two white candidates could emerge from the original slate to challenge each other in a runoff. </p>
<p>That didn’t happen. Norwood won second place. Aman finished a respectable fourth – after Cathy Woolard, the former city council president, who is also white. The strong performances by these candidates, who represent a range of ideological perspectives and have different bases of support, suggest that white candidates are viable in this city which once boasted a supermajority black population. </p>
<p>For years, African-Americans in Atlanta leveraged the concentration of blacks in the city – in part due to white flight – to become key players in city politics. The city’s black majority population has elected black mayors for more than four decades. However, the city’s black population has been shrinking for a generation. Whereas blacks comprised <a href="https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0076/twps0076.pdf">two-thirds of the city’s population in 1990</a>, that number dropped to 54 percent by the <a href="https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF">2010 census</a>. Given the amount of development and gentrification going on the city today that is pricing older, poorer black residents out of the city, it is probable that the 2020 census will reveal an even smaller black population. As the population shifts, it is reasonable to assume that nonblack candidates will emerge as viable candidates for high-profile offices that blacks have held for nearly two generations.</p>
<h2>Don’t count black politicians out yet</h2>
<p>Despite Atlanta’s shrinking black population, African-American voters remain an important, influential voting bloc. While the performance of candidates Norwood, Woolard and Aman is notable, we must also remember that Councilwoman Lance Bottoms qualified for the runoff in first place. She benefited from the endorsement of outgoing Mayor Reed. Public polling also suggests that she had started to <a href="https://twitter.com/wsbtv/status/926573560822452225/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsbtv.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fatlanta-mayoral-race-new-poll-shows-shakeup-at-top%2F638346105">consolidate the African-American vote</a>, while Norwood, who was polling as high as about 20 percent among blacks <a href="https://media-beta.wsbtv.com/document_dev/2017/03/10/Atl%20Poll%20March%208th%20_7504877_ver1.0.pdf">in the spring</a>, started <a href="https://media-beta.wsbtv.com/document_dev/2017/08/29/Landmark%20Communications%2C%20Inc.%2C%20Poll%202%20City%20of%20Atlanta%20Mayor%20%20election_8997146_ver1.0.pdf">to lose black support</a>.</p>
<p>As we turn to the runoff, we should remember a few things. </p>
<p>First, we should seek to understand how demography matters in elections. As my colleagues Michael Leo Owens and Jacob Brown showed in a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/juaf.12067">paper about the 2009 Atlanta mayoral election</a>, racially polarized voting is a real phenomenon in Atlanta politics and should not be ignored. However, demography is not destiny in the ways that we think it is. </p>
<p>For starters, just because Atlanta’s black population is shrinking does not mean that black candidates cannot win office. As the 2014 election of Mayor Muriel Bowser in Washington, D.C. demonstrates, black candidates can still win office in larger cities even when their population falls below 50 percent. And one cannot discount the ability for black candidates to even win election in cities with few to no black residents. For instance, Wilmot Collins made history on Nov. 7 by being elected the first black mayor of Helena, Montana. He follows in the tradition of politicians like Wellington Webb of Denver and Norm Rice of Seattle, who, in 1989, became the first black mayors in majority white cities.</p>
<p>We often forget this, but in 1970 the Census Bureau estimated Atlanta’s black population to be only 51 percent. Three years later, Maynard Jackson became the city’s first black mayor.</p>
<p>Since the 1960s, Atlanta has billed itself as <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/the-night-atlanta-truly-became-the-city-too-busy-to-hate-">“The City Too Busy to Hate.”</a> That slogan belies a complex racial history, but it connotes city leaders’ desire to demonstrate a progressive racial politics. As political scientist Clarence Stone showed in his classic “<a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/subjects/political-science-urban-politics/978-0-7006-0416-6.html">Regime Politics</a>,” electing black mayors has served as an important manifestation of the mantra. </p>
<p>One day, Atlanta will elect a nonblack mayor. However, that does not mean that Atlanta will no longer be “The City Too Busy to Hate,” “Black Mecca” or any of the other monikers that people popularly invoke to describe Atlanta as being a hub of black social, economic and political mobility. And it does not mean that all of a sudden, blacks can no longer be competitive candidates for citywide office or that black voters will not remain influential in determining the outcome of elections. It just means that contests will take on a new dimension of competitiveness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86970/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andra Gillespie has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation. She directs an Institute funded by the Mellon Foundation.</span></em></p>Atlanta is a black majority city that has elected black mayors since 1973. Two candidates now face a runoff in December.Andra Gillespie, Associate Professor, Political Science, Emory UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/809702017-07-13T12:24:24Z2017-07-13T12:24:24ZWhat the lives of two South African music giants tell us about culture under apartheid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178069/original/file-20170713-19681-r1kwl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African jazz legend Ray Phiri passed away after a long battle with lung cancer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thuli Dlamini/The Times</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Back in 2000, musicians interviewed for my book on music and politics in South Africa, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/soweto-blues-9780826416629/">Soweto Blues</a>, regularly asserted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m not a politician.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How could this be, the interview team wondered, when these same people had just described being tear gassed, playing at illegal gatherings and making recordings they knew could be banned? When we dug deeper, what emerged was: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I didn’t say I wasn’t political. But I’m not a politician: I couldn’t compare myself to somebody like Mandela. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the past 10 days, two towering figures in the history of South African music have died. Both were in their seventh decade: trumpet and flugelhorn player <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/tshisa-live/tshisa-live/2017-07-04-jazz-trumpeter-johnny-mekoa-has-died/">Johnny Mekoa</a> was 72; guitarist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/raymond-ray-chikapa-enock-phiri">Ray Chikapa Phiri</a>, 70. Reflecting on their lives and work tells us a great deal about the intersection of black politics and culture under apartheid, and also about the ways South Africans see the music the world calls jazz.</p>
<h2>Bustling mining town</h2>
<p>Mekoa was born on the East Rand, where <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/all-glitters-glitter-gold-emilia-potenza">gold</a> had been discovered in 1887. By the 1940s, his birthplace of Benoni was a bustling, relatively prosperous mining town pitted by reservoirs where whites sailed and picnicked while black citizens were confined to the neighbouring townships of Daveyton and Wattville.</p>
<p>In the townships, jazz bands abounded; Mekoa’s brother Fred was already a trumpeter, and from him, in gigs, and at the central Johannesburg rehearsal and education space of <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/protest-music-south-africa">Dorkay House</a>, the young Johnny honed his chops.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178070/original/file-20170713-9618-z035b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178070/original/file-20170713-9618-z035b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178070/original/file-20170713-9618-z035b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178070/original/file-20170713-9618-z035b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178070/original/file-20170713-9618-z035b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178070/original/file-20170713-9618-z035b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178070/original/file-20170713-9618-z035b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Johnny Mekoa performing in Johannesburg, South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Busisiwe Mbatha/Sowetan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Phiri was born in Nelspruit, an agricultural town near the Mozambican border. Phiri’s father had come from Malawi: he was both a wage worker and the organiser of puppet shows that toured the area, and at which the young Raymond learned dancing and music. </p>
<p>The metropolitan pull of Johannesburg and Soweto drew both musicians to the city.</p>
<p>Around Dorkay House, Mekoa met up with the players with whom he founded the <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.co.za/2011/09/jazz-ministers-zandile.html">Jazz Ministers</a> in 1967. The Ministers built a reputation in township clubs and at the jazz festivals launched by liquor companies after prohibition for black drinkers was ended in 1961.</p>
<p>On a parallel track, Phiri had hooked up with drummer Isaac Mtshali and others to form <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.co.za/search?q=the+Cannibals">The Cannibals</a>, a Soweto Soul outfit which, with many others, was melding the feel of the US soul styles of <a href="http://classic.motown.com/">Motown</a> and <a href="https://www.staxrecords.com/">Stax</a> with South African roots idioms. They developed their skills playing backing for female <em>smanje-manje</em> groups such as the <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.co.za/search?q=Mahotella+Queens">Mahotella Queens</a> (smanje-manje was a fast-tempo, neo-traditional women’s performance style). </p>
<p>By the 1970s, the Jazz Ministers with albums “Zandile” and “Nomvula’s Jazz Dance”, were making sufficient waves for them to be invited to play Newport: something they finally achieved in 1976, stalled three times previously by the refusal of the authorities to grant Mekoa a visa. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Phiri with outfit The Cannibals was making hits and waves. Their track “Highland Drifter” stayed on the Zimbabwe charts for 18 weeks, but was <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.co.za/search?q=Highland+Drifter">banned in South Africa</a>.</p>
<h2>Black pride and defiance</h2>
<p>Both, in their own musical arenas, nurtured black pride and defiance. The Ministers’ jazz was the music of a non-tribal urban, black working class whose very existence apartheid denied. In America – it was Bicentennial year – they were invited to perform on the deck of a South African warship. It was 1976; they refused. On their return, they were all hauled in for questioning by the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/special-branch">police’s special branch</a>, and remained under intermittent observation.</p>
<p>The Cannibals morphed into what became one of South Africa’s greatest bands, <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.co.za/search?q=Stimela">Stimela</a>, joined by additional players. In both incarnations they reflected community resistance and hope. They recorded in English and the Malawian language Chichewa at a time when the apartheid regime, the recording industry, and the South African Broadcasting Corporation were insisting on a policy of “retribalisation” and black music sung in one African language only. </p>
<p>The zenith of their defiance, however, came with the 1986 album <a href="https://soulsafari.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/stimela-look-listen-and-decide-1986/">“Look, Listen and Decide”</a>, whose track <a href="http://www.africappella.com/lyrics/Whispers+in+the+Deep">“Whispers In The Deep/ Phinda Mzala”</a> became an anthem of resistance wherever it was played.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qy9QPjUkvvM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Whispers in the deep’ by Ray Phiri and Stimela.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And the lines between Phiri’s popular music and Mekoa’s jazz were always highly permeable. When jazz festivals happened – increasingly less often after 1976 and into the repressive 1980s – audiences appreciated and danced to both. Levels of virtuosity were often equally high.</p>
<h2>Young lions of jazz</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178072/original/file-20170713-11780-5n1yvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178072/original/file-20170713-11780-5n1yvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178072/original/file-20170713-11780-5n1yvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178072/original/file-20170713-11780-5n1yvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178072/original/file-20170713-11780-5n1yvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178072/original/file-20170713-11780-5n1yvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178072/original/file-20170713-11780-5n1yvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Johnny Mekoa in front of the Gauteng Music Academy building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tladi Khuele/Sowetan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jazzmen regularly played in popular bands: on Stimela’s 1989 <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Thoughts-Visions-And-Dreams-Featuring-Ray-Phiri-A-Man-A-Dog-And-A-Cow/release/8807663">“Thoughts, Visions and Dreams”</a>, the horn line includes saxophonists <a href="http://mccoymrubata.com/">McCoy Mrubata</a>, <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.co.za/2011/06/soul-and-funk-with-teaspoon-ndelu-1981.html">Teaspoon Ndlelu</a> and <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/2884393-Mandla-Masuku">Mandla Masuku</a>. And a song like <a href="https://strut.bandcamp.com/track/ngena-mntanam">“Ngena Mntan'am”</a> from 1984 was a popular song enjoyed by every radio listener, not jazz fans alone.</p>
<p>While he never stopped playing, Mekoa rapidly transitioned into a respected jazz scholar after he gained his first degree in the waning years of apartheid. He had earlier tried to enter formal music education in 1964, but found the doors closed to a man of colour. Instead, he trained as an optician. But in the mid 1980s he won a Fulbright Scholarship to Indiana University, and went on to found the <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/music-academy-gauteng">Music Academy of Gauteng</a>, offering jazz education to the most deprived youngsters in his old home town. From that academy, a whole new generation of “young lion” players have emerged: <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2017-01-15-sax-prodigy-oscar-rachabanes-career-pitches-higher-with-debut-album/">Oscar Rachabane</a>, <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/mthunzi-mvubu/">Mthunzi Mvubu</a>; <a href="http://www.concertssa.co.za/event/nhlanhla-mahlangu-in-residence-2/">Nhlanhla Mahlangu</a>, <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/linda-tshabalala/">Linda Tshabalala</a> (“Why shouldn’t a sister play a horn?” Mekoa demanded), <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/malcolm-jiyane/">Malcolm Jiyane</a> and more.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q3b_7begFqE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘A Temporary Inconvenience’ by Johnny Mekoa with the Music Academy of Gauteng.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Phiri featured on both <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/paul-simon-mn0000031685">Paul Simon</a> music tours, <a href="http://www.paul-simon.info/PHP/musician.php?id_musician=38">“Graceland”</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ray-phiri-south-african-jazz-musician-who-performed-with-paul-simon-dies-at-70/2017/07/12/09df92ae-671c-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html?utm_term=.7daee9ff2b96">“Rhythm of the Saints”</a>, and collaborated with <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/laurie-anderson-mn0000785773">Laurie Anderson</a> on the album <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/album/release/strange-angels-mr0000267955/credits">“Strange Angels”</a>. </p>
<p>He continued to compose and work with Stimela post-liberation (in May of this year, he <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/fr/node/19548">told</a> the website Music in Africa that he had material for three new albums finished and mastered). He also founded a music school, the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/raymond-ray-chikapa-enock-phiri">Ray Phiri Artists’ Institute</a>, at Ka Nyamazane in his home province of Mpumalanga.</p>
<h2>One poignant contrast</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178075/original/file-20170713-9618-1wuz5rv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178075/original/file-20170713-9618-1wuz5rv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178075/original/file-20170713-9618-1wuz5rv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178075/original/file-20170713-9618-1wuz5rv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178075/original/file-20170713-9618-1wuz5rv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178075/original/file-20170713-9618-1wuz5rv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178075/original/file-20170713-9618-1wuz5rv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ray Phiri performing at the Johannesburg Africa Day Jazz Concert in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Masi Losi/TheTimes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both musicians were awarded the South African national <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/raymond-chikapa-phiri-1947">Order</a> of <a href="http://www.jazze.co.za/another-honour-for-mekoa/">Ikhamanga</a> (Silver). But one other, poignant, contrast emerged at the time of their deaths. Although many aficionados knew of Mekoa’s death within hours of the event, it took most of the media days to catch up, tailing after tributes from government ministers. </p>
<p>The death of Phiri hit the headlines within hours of his death. The permeable, flexible terrain between genres that the careers of Phiri and Mekoa negotiated, is being replaced by the rigidities of marketing categories and media information slots.</p>
<p>As Phiri observed back in May,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You’re going to destroy the music for the sake of money. Young musicians nowadays … become a product; their art becomes tied up with the product. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet for those who love and listen – really listen – the legacy of both men will live on equally in the music they made, and the fresh players, with fresh vision, they nurtured. May their spirits rest in peace; <em>hamba kahle</em> (go well). </p>
<p><em><strong>Essential listening</strong></em>:</p>
<p><strong>Johnny Mekoa:</strong>
(Very little available online, but check the excellent <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.co.za/">Electric Jive</a> site)</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_cqFSSkxL6I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Ndize Bonono Na?’ by Johnny Mekoa with the Jazz Ministers .</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Ray Phiri:</strong>
(with The Cannibals):</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/15Y0sddsyvM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ray Phiri with The Cannibals - ‘Get funky’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>(with Stimela): </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j22x7ojE0uQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ray Phiri with Stimela and their hit ‘Where did we go wrong?’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>(with Paul Simon):</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2t8wAgIewWY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ray Phiri playing with Paul Simon on ‘Sound of silence’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nC9OJb9bJh4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ray Phiri playing with Paul Simon on ‘I know what I know’.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80970/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two of South Africa’s finest musicians, Johnny Mekoa and Ray Phiri, died recently. The permeable terrain between genres their careers negotiated, is being replaced by rigid marketing categories.Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.