The Indianapolis African-American community wasn’t the community of interest most harmed by Republican legislative mapmakers. The most harmed were suburbanites, who despite their strong population growth, are still forced to share their House and Senate districts with Indianapolis legislators; so Marion County Republicans can cling to power despite tens of thousands of white GOP voters leaving Marion County in the past decade.
The GOP Senate maps are the most egregious. Despite its 5 percent population gain, Indianapolis/Marion County, Indiana’s largest county has just three Senate districts wholly within the city/county.
Two of those districts are Black-majority districts; the other is a Southeastside district. To retain GOP hegemony, the remaining six Senate districts include large swaths of suburban territory.
The most egregious gerrymander is proposed Senate District 28, which would merge all of Hancock County, the northern rural half of Shelby County in with the middle of Warren Township in Indy.
While this district would include Black enclaves in Hancock County, some 12,000 Warren Township Blacks would be trapped in a rural-dominated district. That alone is a clear violation of community of interest.
Only 61 percent of the city/county’s Black population lives in the two Black-majority Senate districts. Republican mapmakers severely restricted Black voting strength in Pike, Washington, Lawrence and Wayne townships. Not so much to inhibit Black voting power, but to try and preserve a dying species, GOP control of this city/county’s Senate seats.
While Senate Republicans were openly hostile to Black interests, GOP mapmakers in the House were more fearful of Federal Voting Rights challenges.
Their maps do include specious gerrymanders designed to preserve Republican control. But they did create five Black-majority House Districts. One more than in 2001 when Democrats controlled the mapmaking process. Some 71 percent of the city/county’s Blacks would live in a Black-majority House district.
House Republicans, though, exacted revenge on their Democratic colleagues by placing several in the same district.
GOP mapmakers, stung by what Democrats did in 2001 after they created a new Democratic district in Marion County, eliminated that district and placed Rep. Jeb Bardon in with Rep. Vanessa Summers in a district which snakes from Center and Washington townships and curls into Black and new Hispanic precincts in Wayne Township.
The maps were an exercise in raw, naked power by local Republicans desperate to retain power, despite their declining voter base.
What I’m hearing
in the streets
One of Black media’s frustrations has been the inability to get politicians (of all parties) to seriously include Black media in formal candidate debates.
Well, this election year, I hope to break new ground.
On April 29, in a special edition of WTLC-AM (1310’s) “Afternoons with Amos,” there’ll be a formal debate between the candidates for the Democratic nomination for mayor.
Ron Gibson, Melina Kennedy and Sam Carson will appear for an hour, answering questions on the issues in the Indianapolis mayor’s race.
When I say a “formal debate” that’s one with formal opening and closing candidate statements. They’ll each be asked to answer questions and have some 90 seconds to answer.
The debate is patterned after those organized by the Indiana Debate Commission, which puts a debate’s focus on voters; not media or media personalities.
I hope you’ll listen on April 29, on WTLC-AM (1310). A one-hour pre-debate program starts at 1 p.m.; followed by the debate at 2 p.m. sharp.
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The sophomores, juniors and seniors at Charles A. Tindley Accelerated Charter School comprised most of the audience at a town hall meeting on education put together by Gov. Mitch Daniels and featuring U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The two men were questioned primarily by the Tindley students. The thousands listening live on “Afternoons with Amos” burst with pride as the students asked great questions that forced Daniels and Duncan to bring their “A” game to answer.
Education funding, state takeover of IPS, teacher pay and evaluations and more were asked of the two men by the students.
Secretary Duncan and Gov. Daniels agreed on many education issues, but differed sharply on school vouchers and collective bargaining for teachers, two keystones of Daniels’ education policy.
Some listening on radio were perturbed with the governor’s repeated references to President Barack Obama as “your president” when he talked about the president with Secretary Duncan. Somebody needs to tell the governor that until he runs or wins, President Obama is everyone’s president, even Mitch’s.
Kudos to the Tindley students. But their performance could’ve been repeated at any other predominantly African-American school. Because when given the opportunity, African-American students can and do deliver!
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One of the lions of our region’s and state’s African-American community died earlier this month. In every sense, Beatrice “Bea” Moten Foster lived a full life.
In the late 1960s, she was part of WTLC-FM’s inaugural efforts to provide news and information. She helped educate scores of Indianapolis women in poise and culture through her Bea Moten Charm and Modeling School.
When she moved to Muncie in the early 1980s, not only did she find love with her husband Dr. Robert Foster, a Ball State professor, but she melded her love of journalism with activism becoming the owner and editor of The Muncie Times, the city and region’s Black newspaper.
Bea Moten Foster became a pillar not just of Muncie’s African-American community, but the overall community.
Her impact upon Muncie, Delaware County and North Central Indiana are immensurable. This lion of our community will be deeply missed.
Her death just two weeks after her beloved husband, while tragic, allows us to know that God wanted this couple reunited in his kingdom.
My deepest sympathy to Bea Moten Foster’s family and many, many friends.
See ‘ya next week.
You can e-mail comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
