Independent Voting

Long considered the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, African American voters have begun to consider other options, to self-identify as independents, and to vote in significant numbers for candidates and parties other than Democrats, Dr. Lenora Fulani recently said.

Fulani is a developmental psychologist and America's best-known African American independent.

In the 1988 presidential election, she became the first woman and the first African American to get on the ballot in all 50 states. Fulani, in 1992, ran again as an independent presidential candidate and got on the ballot in 40 states.

As keynote speaker for the Independent Movement Southeastern Conference, she discussed third-party politics.

The March 18 conference in Marietta was sponsored by The Independent Movement, a Conyers-based independent political organization.

"Black people will be a force in the independent movement," Fulani said. "Until more Blacks vote independent, issues such as poverty and race will go unaddressed by the two parties."

She is a pioneer of left/center/right coalitions and a longtime agitator for African American political independence.

Originally from Chester, Penn., Fulani received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the City University of New York, is a cofounder of the All Stars Talent Show Network, one of the country's leading youth anti-violence programs, and is the Senior Program Advisor for the All Stars Project, a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting human development through the use of an innovative performance-based model.

Fulani is chairperson of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, an organization, co-founded by her and Jacqueline Salit in 1994, dedicated to bringing various independent groups together to challenge the bipartisan hegemony in American politics.

Thirty-eight percent of Americans identify themselves as independents, Fulani said.

She is a member of the Independence Party of New York, the state's third largest political party.

In the 2001 election for mayor of New York City, Fulani and the Independence Party endorsed the Republican candidate, Michael Bloomberg.

The Bloomberg alliance with Fulani and her associates in part was the result of New York's fusion rule, which allowed Bloomberg to aggregate his votes on all ballot lines.

In the November 2005 mayor's race, 47 percent of the Black vote supported Bloomberg in his reelection bid, who ran on the Republican and Independence party lines, breaking the longstanding tradition of voting monolithically for Democrats.

The shift in voting patterns during New York City's mayoral election caused a backlash not only aimed at voters of color but also aimed at Fulani, she said.

"The Democratic Party realized a sea change occurred," Fulani said. "The independent movement is putting fear in the camps of the two parties."

In September 2005, Fulani and other Independence Party leaders were expelled from the state executive committee of the party.

The party's state chairman, Frank MacKay, who had been a long-time ally of Fulani, claimed that the reason was that they had become an embarrassment to the party because of Fulani's public refusal on a New York City cable news channel to repudiate an earlier statement in which she had called Jews "mass murderers of people of color."

"I've spent the last 25 years working closely with Jewish colleagues and friends," she continued. "Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, whose campaign I vigorously supported, is a Jew. One of my closest advisors, Jackie Salit, is a Jew. Many of the volunteers and supporters of my youth program are Jewish. My record on these partnerships and this bridge-building is clar cut."

Due to the Independence Party's ouster of her and other party leaders - and the party's move to disband three county organizations in New York City where the majority of the party's Black membership and voters are based - Fulani recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department asserting violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"The independent movement must be democratic, diverse and free of major party control," she said. "These actions by Mr. McKay are a move to make the Independence Party an all-White party and are a move against the Black community."

"The two parties are scared of the Black community voting independent," she said. "We have the right to own our politics.

In addition to Fulani and other Independence Party leaders, voters from New York, Georgia, Massachusetts, Illinois, South Carolina, California and Maine have joined the complaint, citing the chilling effect violations of the Voting Rights Act have on independent organizing efforts in other parts of the country, particularly with respect to Black voters.

Fulani encouraged the audience to write letters to and contact officials with the U.S. Justice Department to urge the Independence Party's compliance with the Voting Rights Act.