The Forgotten War on “Black-on-Black Crime” and the Black Silent Majority, 1970–79

Against the backdrop of civil rights and Black Power activism, this paper looks at the emergence of a less studied “Black silent majority” that waged a fierce battle against “Black-on-Black crime” during the late 1970s. It complicates how Black conservatism is commonly understood through a Republican lens by looking at mostly working and middle-class Democrats in urban communities who remained loyal to the party while adopting conservative views about crime. Even though many African Americans felt compelled to remain silent about crime in their communities out of fear of reinforcing racist stereotypes, soaring crime rates in inner cities across the country significantly influenced their decision to adopt some of the law-and-order rhetoric of white conservatives that demonized perpetrators and deemphasized mitigating factors like structural inequality. The Black silent majority included a wide array of neighborhood associations, civic organizations, beauticians, church leaders, local press, women’s auxiliary groups, and anticrime activists. In contrast to the white silent majority, however, they refashioned their views about Black-on-Black crime to address the racialized, gendered, and socioeconomic experiences of African Americans in postwar urban society.