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Black leaders campaign for presidential nominees of both parties.
1972 (Aug 25 - Oct 28)
Black civil rights and political leaders campaigned on behalf of the presidential nominees of both parties. On August 25, Georgia State Representative Julian Bond told an audience at Columbia University in New York that "Black Americans ought to come together to drive Richard Nixon from the White House." Bond predicted that Nixon's opponent, Senator George McGovern from South Dakota, would capture 90 percent of the nation's Black vote. On October 28, Floyd McKissick, former national director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and developer of the new town of Soul City in North Carolina, told an Atlanta audience that he supported the reelection of President Nixon because Blacks should belong to both political parties and because Nixon had done more for Blacks than Senator McGovern. Veteran Atlanta civil rights leader William Holmes Borders, another Nixon supporter, cited the administration's aid to Howard University in Washington, D.C., Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, sickle-cell anemia research, and job retraining programs as evidence of the President's concern for Blacks.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.