Conservatism in the Black Community

Book excerpt: Conservatism in the Black Community examines the contemporary meanings of Black Conservatism and its influence on black political behavior, providing a basis for understanding the impact this phenomenon has on black political behavior. Lewis analyzes conservatism within the black ideological framework, while also explaining the meaning of conservatism in the black community. While scholars have argued that the level of support for conservatism among blacks is minimal because conservatism is antithetical to black interest, there are a cadre of conservative political intellectuals and political elites in America. Do their views influence those of the wider Black population? Or does the media merely amplify their voices but with little support? What part of contemporary Black conservatism has found a home in the Tea Party movement? Focusing on what conservatism means to Blacks at the grassroots level and in what issue areas Blacks as a whole tend to have more conservative views, this work neither critiques nor praises Black Conservatism. The results of Lewis’s mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies will be of strong interest to students and scholars of Black politics, Black studies, and political behavior more generally.