Situation Report: A Time Special Issue

OUT of 203 million Americans, 22.7 million or 11 % are black. The most striking indicator of their political progress is the continuing rise in the number of Negroes holding elective public offices at local levels. A new survey by the Metropolitan Applied Research Center shows that there are now 1,469 black officials in the U.S. Among these are 168 state legislators, 48 mayors, 575 other elected city officials, 362 school-board members and 99 law-enforcement officials.

Most of the expansion of power has taken place in the South, though the only state in which the proportion of black legislators is greater...

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