Sir, - I was bothered by a comment the US Congressman Harold Ford made at the recent colloquim on racism held in Dublin (The Irish Times, April 17th). He noted that the Democratic Party refused to seat an African-American woman at the party's 1968 convention in Chicago. Twenty-eight years later, Congressman Ford, an African-American, occupied a place of honour at the party's convention, also held in Chicago. The congressman said the contrast showed how much the US had improved its race relations in the intervening years.
Congressman Ford had the details of the story slightly wrong. The Democrats' refusal to seat Mrs Fannie Lou Hamer took place at the party's 1964 convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. More importantly, by comparing himself to Mrs Hamer, the congressman obscured a critical difference between their experiences. Mr Ford is the son of a congressman, the recipient of an Ivy League education, and a lawyer. Mrs Hamer spent her life as a sharecropper in the Mississippi Delta, then as now one of the poorest places in America.
Congressman Ford is certainly correct to say that American political life has become more open to African-Americans, a great achievement. But it still does not give a voice to the poor, both black and white, whom Mrs Hamer so forcefully represented three decades ago. - Yours, etc.,
Kevin Boyle,
Professor of History, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4.