Twin brothers are the leading chroniclers of Southern politics

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Posted 7:49PM on Saturday, June 15, 2002

ATLANTA - When political strategists plan a campaign in the South, they turn to the Black books. When students want to learn about the region's politics, they take a Black class. And when reporters need analysis of a Southern politician, they call one of the Black brothers. Considered the leading chroniclers of Southern politics, Merle and Earl Black were born 15 minutes apart. Their books and analysis of the region's elections are indispensable for anyone trying to understand politics beneath the Mason-Dixon line. ``They took a Northern boy, born in Massachusetts, and taught me about the South through their books,'' said Richard Fenno, a political science professor at the University of Rochester. Born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas, the Blacks went North to school: Merle at Harvard and the University of Chicago, and Earl at Harvard after graduating from the University of Texas. ``The whole effort to try to understand how Southern politics has developed came into focus a lot more sharply once I was outside the region,'' Earl Black said. ``It kind of struck me as something that seemed very complex and important and I decided at that point to study it.'' In their lifetime, the 60-year-old identical twins have watched the region evolve from one dominated by yellow-dog Democrats such as their parents, to one in which Republicans are competitive in local races and win nearly every presidential election. The brothers have written three books together, including this year's ``The Rise of Southern Republicans.'' Merle Black first became interested in politics as a child in the early 1950s. One election night, he accompanied his mother, who was recording a precinct chief's vote count in a judgeship election. One of the candidates was Baptist; the other Methodist, as was the precinct chief. According to Merle, when the chief came to one of the votes for the Baptist candidate he read it as a Methodist vote. Black thought there might have been a mistake, until it happened a few more times. ``It finally dawned on me,'' he said. ``This is what they call cheating.'' For Earl Black, the lure of politics came in the 1960s, as he watched the progress of the civil rights movement. ``At that point, it was clear that enormous change was going to occur in the American South and that nudged me toward the issue of Southern politics,'' he said. During college, Merle Black's interest in Southern politics grew when he worked summers in an east Texas gas plant. ``It was right next to Louisiana and so you got a flavor for Louisiana politics as well,'' he said. ``The South was a place of change at that time.'' After college, he joined the Peace Corps and taught English and math in Liberia. He now is a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta. Earl Black's first teaching job was at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He then moved to the University of South Carolina before accepting his current position at Rice University in 1993. The brotherly collaboration came about gradually in the late-1970s and has worked well despite the hundreds of miles between them. ``Sometimes we disagree on how we could approach something,'' Earl Black said. ``I think Merle is more likely the kind to worry about not having done x, y, z and I'm more likely to say 'We've got to get closure to this.' ``My own private test is to see if I can come back after several years and not cringe. I think the books have held up pretty well.'' Their first book, ``Politics and Society in the South,'' received high praise, and since then they've gathered a strong following among academics, journalists and even politicians. ``The Black brothers have created a realistic view of Southern politics and show Southern history in a sincere light,'' said Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. Harry Watson, director of the Center for the Study of the American South, said they ``have shaped the way people look at Southern politics.'' Fenno, who recently received a national award named after V.O. Key, the father of Southern politics, credits the Black brothers for his dip into Southern politics. ``I ventured into Southern politics. I put my toe in it and it was mostly because of them,'' Fenno said. ``They're a perfect combination. Actually, you can't tell them apart.'' Both men say they will continue to mine the region for stories. ``You've got a very dynamic region here,'' Earl Black said. ``Southern politics tends to be more volatile because you've got race as a central cleavage.'' Both Blacks agree that the one constant that brings them back to studying Southern politics is that there isn't one. ``Politics, real politics, fluctuates,'' Earl Black said. ``There aren't