basis of race or creed, and when the Progressive candidate, Robert LaFollette, made a similar statement, Negroes began to desert the Republican Party" (Franklin and Moss, 1988, 343).
Franklin and Moss make another interesting argument concerning why blacks abandoned the Republican Party in the late twenties and early thirties. They believe that the black voter was becoming politically more sophisticated. The growth of black political movements such as the Urban League and the NAACP, as well as the growth in black newspapers, provided a platform for familiarizing blacks with the political process. These papers and organizations also acted as an information network which informed blacks of the most current developments on the political stage as well as the voting records of politicians. Thus, "more and mor
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