In the 1960s, the American civil rights movement culminated with historic victories as Congress enacted legislation that evened the playing field between the races. In the decades that have followed, African Americans as a whole have made significant strides towards bridging the economic status and political participation gaps that separate the two races. Political participation is key to the functioning of a democracy, and Blacks as a whole have become increasingly active in the political arena. However, within the Black community there continues to be a gap between the political participation of men and women. African-American women have to overcome two social stigmas. They are black, in a country that to this day discriminates on the basis of race, and they are women, in a country that to this day includes a glass-ceiling. It is thus not surprising that black women have tended to be underrepresented at all levels of government and that tend to abstain from voting. This paper will analyze the participation of African American women in the American political process. We will see that their participation lags well behind that of Black men despite the significant advances made by African Americans over the past several decades. However, while their participation in political work has lagged behind, black women are more likely to vote than black men. The latter part of this paper will explore some potential reasons for this dichotomy, chief among them being the economic status of African American women.
As we enter into the 21st century, African Americans have achieved a level of political integration into American government that was unthinkable even fifty years ago. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 paved the way for Blacks to participate fully in the American political system by forever banishing the impediments to their participation which had been erected in the South (Jacobs, 19). Barack Obama's stirring victory in ...