Now an expert in racial and ethnic politics, Zoltan Hajnal, an assistant professor of political science, actually grew up in a homogeneous environment in Canada. His interest in race relations and politics was sparked in college when he moved to a segregated and divided community in New England. He’s written numerous articles on racial segregation, inequality, interest group politics, and minority representation. He recently published a book titled "Changing White Attitudes toward Black Political Leadership."

Hajnal: I was interested in looking at the interaction between black leaders and white constituents for two reasons.  First, for real racial change to occur in America, white Americans have to be involved.  Even with recent demographic changes, whites still represent the vast majority of the population and they still clearly hold the vast majority of the economic and political resources.  Trying to figure out what the white community is willing to do or not to do to affect racial change is, thus, one of the most central questions concerning the long term well-being of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. 

Second, I felt that the story being told in the literature about black leadership was slightly misleading.  When social scientists study black representation, their accounts almost inevitably concern the well-being of the black population.  The problem is that black elected officials rarely have the power to unilaterally institute policy changes that are radical enough to markedly improve black well-being.  The result is that most of these studies find that black leadership makes no difference or at best leads to small changes on the margin.  I did not think that was the whole story, and I set out to study the effect of black leadership on the white community to see if a different story would emerge.  And when I did shift the focus to the white community, it became clear that black representation could have important consequences. 

Hajnal: What I found was that black leadership can lead to significant change in the way that many white Americans think about race and equally significant change in local racial politics.  My research suggests that a positive experience under black elected officials teaches many white residents that they have little to fear from black leadership and the black community more broadly.  That learning process leads to marked improvement in white racial attitudes in national public opinion surveys and often dramatic swings in the white vote in local electoral contests.  Black challengers who were opposed by most white residents, often get majority white support as incumbents.  Moreover, when new black candidates enter the local arena in the future, they have less of a hurdle to overcome with white voters.

Hajnal: Probably the most interesting pattern that I uncovered through my research was how ardently some white communities fought to resist the onset of black control of the local political arena and then how quickly things turned around in that same community.  Memphis provides the starkest example.  When Willie Herenton ran to become the first African American mayor in that city 1991, he was opposed by 98 percent of white voters who turned out in record numbers to try to prevent a black takeover.  Although it was described as one of the most racially polarized mayoral elections in urban American history, the results were actually almost identical to the many previous occasions when black candidates had sought the mayoralty in the city.  What makes the Memphis story so remarkable is what happened after Herenton assumed power.  Decades of heated white opposition faded away, and support for black leadership grew dramatically. By Herenton’s fourth year in office, a citywide poll revealed that three-quarters of all whites in the city approved of the job that he had done.  He was reelected over and over again with majority white support.

Hajnal: I argue that experience with a black incumbent imparts critical information that dispels white fears about blacks and black leadership.  In the past, when African Americans were elected for the first time to positions of leadership over the white community, there was a lot of fear and apprehension on the part of a large segment of the white community.  With little experience with blacks in positions of authority, many whites feared that black leadership would favor the black community over the white community and lead to a reversal of the racial status quo.  When the world under black leadership turns out to be almost identical to the world under white leadership, white residents learn that they have little to fear from blacks. As a result, many whites are forced to reevaluate their assumptions and stereotypes.  The learning process does not occur for everyone and the change for many individuals is marginal at best, but there is progress. 

Hajnal: Although it is often difficult to see the effects that black leadership has had on the black community, there are a number to note.  Perhaps the most important, are the changes in black attitudes that other researchers have found.  Under black leaders, members of the African American community tend to have higher political efficacy, higher trust in the political system, and higher voting rates.  In short, African Americans, as a group, feel more involved in the political process when they see black representatives in office.  I hope that the changes in white attitudes that occur as a result of black leadership will eventually lead to policies that improve economic conditions in the black community but, if this happens, it will be a longer term process.

Hajnal: I don’t think he has had any impact yet.  The actions and statements of African Americans who campaign for office can easily be dismissed by members of the white community.  Until black leaders prove in office that they will support the white community, I don’t think they can affect much change.

Hajnal: If my theory is right, his presidency would do a lot to change white attitudes across the nation.  In my book, I argue that whites only learn from black elected officials when they think those elected officials have the power to enact real change in their lives.  Thus, black mayors tend to have more of an impact on the white community than black legislators who can usually be outvoted by white legislators and who often have little direct control over local conditions.  A black president would surely be seen as much more powerful than a black mayor and would therefore present an interesting and important test case.

Hajnal: That is an extremely difficult question to answer. Often the more I learn about race and racial dynamics, the less certain I am that any given policy will work.  If I were forced to focus on one thing, it might be on studies that assess how widespread discrimination is in American society.  I think the most important barrier to positive racial change in this country is the fact that racial and ethnic minorities and white Americans tend to disagree about how widespread discrimination is.  Most minorities claim to see and feel discrimination regularly in their own lives.  Most white Americans do not think that discrimination is a major barrier.  If we can’t agree on what America is like, we can’t agree on the policies to fix it.  For this reason, I feel that experiments, audit studies, and other research that is able to definitely show that discrimination exists are very important. 

Hajnal: I grew up in an almost completely white environment in the Canadian prairies.  I had almost no experience with race or what it meant.  When I went to college, my experience with race and ethnicity changed dramatically.  I went to school in New Haven, an intensely segregated and divided community. All of a sudden, race was a critically important variable in people’s lives.  Later, when I traveled around the world, I noticed that in every country there was always at least one group that was deemed as different and as less capable.  I just didn’t understand why race or ethnicity was always so important and I wanted to try to get some answers.   Many years later, of course, I am still looking for answers.