Redistricting is Boon to Black Politics (Raleigh News and Observer)

    The News and Observer
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Ralelgh, N.C., ilonday, July 5,1982

Daily 25c, SundaY 50'c

Main Number 829-4500 Classified 829-4600 Circulatlon 829-4700

Under the dome

Redistrieting i-s boon to black politieians
In February, state Rep. George

A. Hux, D-Halifax, compared the
partition of Halifax and other
northeastern North Carolina coun-
ties to create majority black dis-
tricts to the Western allies' ap-
peasement of Adolf Hitler at Mu-
nich in 1938.

As votes from Hux's new black
majority 7th House District were
tabulated Tuesday night, he be-
came one of the foremost victims
of 1982 legislative reapportion-.
ment.

Statewide, reapportionment ap-

lpeurr to be playing a major role in

at least doubling the number of
black legislators.

Hux, who tried to amend legisla-
tion creating black-majority dis-
tricts in his area, was defeated
soundly by Frank W. Ballance, a
black attorney from Warrenton.

Ballance received 53.8 percent
of the vote compared with 38.4 per-
cent for Hux, chairman of the
Courts and Judicial Districts Com-
mittee in the lg8l session. A third
candidate won the remaining 7.8
percent.

See DOME, page 6A



Under

Continuedfron pagc l.A

Rep. C. Melvin "Pap" Creecy,
D-Northampton, a black first-term
member, won renomination in the
new 61 percent black Sth District
over a white challenger. Creeey
polled 53.7 percent of the vote
against Andrew V. Brown.

Black leaders said last week
that they expected at least eight of
the 13 blacks nominated for state
House and Senate seats or in ru-
noffs to be eleeted Nov. 2.

That would at least double the
four black members of the Gener-
al Assembly, three in the House
and one in the Senate.

In Tuesday's primary, one black
wcin a Senate nomination and nine
blacks won House nominations.
One black also was unopposed for
a Senate nomination, and two
blacks are in runoffs for House
nominations.

G.K. Butterfield, a black attor-
ney and civil rights leader from
Wilson, told Dome: "['m not satis-
fied, but I am pleased to know that
black candidates can run for office
and be elected. Still, we're far
from where we ought to be."

If eight blacks are elected in No-
vember, they would comprise 4.7
percent of the Legislature in a
state that is about 23 percent
black.

Butterfield said a doubling of
black legislative membership
"will make a tremendous differ-
ence in the political life of black
people in the state, partieularly by
having a black voice on most ma-
jor committees."

Benjamin Ruffin, a senior black
aide to Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.,
said there was little question that
redistricting aided black candi-
dates.

"Redistricting was a factor," he
said. "Where we had candidates,
we did well."

The new legislation, in addition
to creating black majority dis-
tricts in the ncrtheast, also creat-
ed a two-seat black majority dis-
trict in Cumberland County and a
black majority district in Guilford.

Ruffin said blacks would learn
quickly the dynamics of power in
the Legislature by functioning as a
cohesive body.

"Those eight or l0 votes could be
real important on many issues,"
he said.

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