Pick up Black Rednecks and White liberals by Thomas Sowell for more enlightment. I bet he would even answer a well thought out email from you also : )
Thanks, will do. ;)
To understand why Blacks vote Democrat, you need to know a bit of history. When they were first given the vote following the Civil War, enfranchisement was the idea of Republicans and staunchly opposed by Democrats. The Republicans were the party of Lincoln, the party of abolition - why vote Democrat?
That was the 1860s. Republicans gradually became the party of business interests by the 1880s. By the 1880s, a system of Jim Crow laws had been newly cemented as well, effectively preventing most American Blacks from voting. So, from the 1880s til the 1960s Civil Rights era, Blacks weren't voting.
Meanwhile, FDR took office in 1933. Part of his campaign strategy was creating a coalition of people who were traditionally Republican voters and enticing them to the Democrats. This included Union workers, farmers, and minorities (blacks, Jews, immigrants, etc). Why would they vote for the Democrats?
The Republicans were still largely the party of rich white people. Union workers were easily swayed because the Republicans backed the businesses keeping down their wages and forcing them to work in dangerous factories (back when reform of such things was still a majorly contested issue). Farmers went Democrat because Hoover had done nothing for them whatsoever, why not try someone new with FDR's New Deal of farm subsidies? Minorities voted FDR's way because they were often the non-Union work force for Republican-owned corporations.
Whatever your politics, you have to admit FDR's campaign strategy worked: his coalition re-elected him for 12 years.
Gradually, his coalition fell apart. Farmers felt his policies were wasteful. Union-workers started voting more for their morality (abortion is a powerful voting motivator) than their economic interests. Blacks, however, have stayed faithful to the Democrats. Contrary to your first post Celmak, the Democrats have done a great deal to keep African Americans within their voting bloc. The New Deal, the Civil Rights Era, the Great Society were all policies designed to benefit the poor, and all were spearheaded by Democrat administrations - and like it or not, American Blacks are usually a (sadly) disproportionate majority of America's poor.