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even that is a very small percentage. I suspect that the percentage of blacks in elected office is probably less than two per cent of the elected offices. But it's still substantially greater than it was ten, fifteen years ago.
I was just reading a very recent piece in the WASHINGTON POST [“Outlook”], by-lined Juan Williams, who I believe is a black staff reporter. He's quoting [Jesse] Jackson here, I believe, who said that blacks constitute about one per cent of all elected officials, although they're more than ten per cent of the population. This apparently was picked up in a TV interview and- --
I thought it was a little more than one per cent.
Well, this, of course, is Jackson's figure.
Well, it's very small. I mean, there's no question about that.
Would Jackson be beyond exercising hyperbole?
I don't think so. He's a political figure, isn't he? I think that he during the last campaign gave a shot in the arm, a psychological shot in the arm, to blacks. It wasn't sustained, but certainly Jackson's candidacy stimulated a higher percentage
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