The Decisive Black Vote

'One of the most basic weapons in the fight for social justice will be the cumulative political power of the Negro. I can foresee the Negro vote becoming consistently the decisive vote in national elections.'

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the things that is bugging me about how quickly African-American voters got slandered for the passage of Prop 8 in California, is how silent those same peeps have been about how decisive the Black vote was in terms of getting Barack Obama elected to the presidency. Dr. King's prescient comments about how decisive the African-American vote would become played out in this election.

How decisive?

*Without the Black vote, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina wouldn't have turned blue.

*Colorado, Florida and Nevada wouldn't have without the tag team of Latino and African-American voters

*Pennsylvania stayed blue because of it

*Mary Landrieu owes her reelection to the Senate in 2002 and 2008 to Louisiana's African-American voters.

*Saxby Chambliss wouldn't be facing a runoff in Georgia

*Missouri wouldn't have been as close or stayed in play without it.

Bottom line, if we have the juice despite having 6% of the population of California clustered in nine counties to be blamed for the passage of Proposition 8, then conversely, African-American voters are responsible for flipping six states that Bush won in 2004 and electing President Obama.