Joshua Farrington's Black Republicans and the Transformation of the GOP is an exceptionally well-researched and persuasively argued addition to the currently burgeoning research on the modern Republican Party. While Farrington's work was released soon after Leah Wright Rigueur's excellent The Loneliness of the Black Republican (2015), which similarly traces black Republicans from the New Deal era to the dawn of the Reagan years, this does not lessen the value of his study. As Farrington's own review of Rigueur's work points out, her book was rooted in national politics at the expense of state developments, somewhat ignorant of southern black Republicans, and too keen to use the labels “Republican” and “conservative” interchangeably during an era when liberal and moderate Republicans were significant players in the GOP.Footnote ¹ Unsurprisingly, Farrington's work redresses these issues.

In writing the book, Farrington sought to challenge the existing perception of black Republicans as “victims caught off guard by a party turned racist” (4). While this book is successful in demonstrating that black Republicans were not caught off guard, it does show that black Republicans were indeed almost always victims of prejudice in a party that had for generations been dominated by racist thinking and therefore did not need to turn racist. For instance, Herbert Hoover's interactions with black Republicanism should give pause to revisionist biographers who have gone too far in rehabilitating the thirty-first President. Farrington notes that Hoover offered support to “Lily-White” southern groups who, at state level, sought to overthrow mixed-race “Black-and-Tan” Republicans. In his role as party leader, Hoover unsubtly declared, “It is time for the cream to rise to the top” (19).

The heart of Farrington's study, however, is devoted to the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. Throughout these years, influential black Republicans faced the twin struggle of persuading African Americans that the GOP was worth their vote while also trying to convince the Republican Party that the black vote was a prize for which it was worth fighting. Black Republicans, often drawn from middle-class backgrounds and devoted to civil rights issues, largely failed to persuade working-class black voters – inclined to vote Democratic on economic grounds – to abandon the party of the New Deal. Nonetheless, this appeal to support the GOP was muted by white Republican officials who often prevented black Republicans from access to sufficient campaign material or influence in policy decisions.

As the Republican Party trended conservative following Barry Goldwater's nomination in 1964, Farrington shows how black Republicans found themselves in the crosshairs of the party's ideological struggle. Their alliance with the Eastern Establishment wing meant that conservatives saw black Republicans as an impediment to dragging the GOP rightwards. As such, southern organizations aggressively ousted African Americans from delegations that had previously provided crucial votes in nominating moderate Republicans for the presidency. While these black Republicans would enjoy a brief revival in influence during Richard Nixon's first term, their continued association with the liberal wing of the party saw them marginalized when Ronald Reagan was victorious in 1980.

Farrington offers four reasons why black Republicans, despite these obstacles, remained loyal to the party of Lincoln. Most obviously, black Republicans often had a socioeconomic background that was a natural fit for the Republican Party. Moreover, allying themselves with the GOP often was a pragmatic decision for black politicians to get federal resources when Eisenhower and Nixon were in power. Many also believed that Democrats either took African Americans for granted or that Democratic policies encouraged welfare dependency among black Americans. The reason that emerges above all, however, is that black Republicans simply believed that African Americans needed to be on both sides of the two-party system to achieve their goals.

While Farrington's work is a thorough and convincing examination of black Republicanism, it does have its limitations. For instance, there is no discussion of the deteriorating relationship between Nelson Rockefeller – the embodiment of the Eastern Establishment – and high-profile black Republicans, such as Jackie Robinson. Moreover, analysis of black Republican initiatives, such as Floyd McKissick's Soul City project, is left vague. Finally, there is little here on how successful black Republicans were in influencing Congress.

Nevertheless, Farrington's study is an important contribution to our understanding of both African American politics and the development of the modern Republican Party. It demonstrates that while black Republicans were sometimes not the best messengers in appealing to most black voters, they were ultimately hamstrung in their efforts to promote the Republican Party by the GOP itself. Reluctant to devote resources to black outreach, eager to court former southern segregationists, and moving in a policy direction that sought to reverse social programmes that benefited African Americans, the Republican Party was a flawed product for black Republicans to sell.