Shortly before the 2002 S.C. gubernatorial election, a top National Association for the Advancement of Colored People official told me he had a meeting later that day with Mark Sanford, the Republican Party candidate for governor. When I asked him how often he had met with Sanford during the campaign, he replied that this would be the first time.

How often, I then asked him, had he met during the campaign with Jim Hodges, the state's Democratic incumbent governor? "Never," the NAACP official said, shaking his head.

This anecdote reveals a lot about the level of cynicism that Republicans and Democrats demonstrate toward African-Americans. It also explains, in part, why African-Americans increasingly are turning away from the Democratic Party and politics in general. "Democrats took [African-American] votes for granted, and the Republican Party ignored them," author Donna Brazile wrote in her essay "The African-American Vote."

If Democrats are to win in the November elections, they need to reaffirm their commitment to the African-American community. They should begin doing that in South Carolina, which on Feb. 3 has the South's first presidential primary.

Given the Republican Party's views on issues such as civil rights, crime, education and affirmative action, Democrats, by default, should count on African-American support in November - as they did when Bill Clinton was president. If blacks had turned out for Al Gore in 2000 like they did for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Gore may very well have won the White House. If Jim Hodges had been more solicitous of the NAACP and, in general, African-Americans, which comprise about a quarter of S.C. registered voters, he may have defeated Mark Sanford.

By taking African-Americans for granted, Democrats have seen an erosion in the support of its most loyal voting base. More and more African-Americans don't vote. And more and more African-Americans are voting Republican. In 2002, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies conducted a national survey of African-Americans finding that 63 percent identified themselves as Democrats, which was down from 74 percent in 2000. In the 26 to 35 age group, 15 percent identified themselves as Republicans - up from 5 percent in 2000.

These figures reflect an increase in the numbers of affluent African-Americans. But they also demonstrate the success of the Republican Party to promote African-Americans such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and former U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla.

There remains a lot of suspicion about Republicans. When George W. Bush campaigned in South Carolina before the state's 2000 Republican primary, he gave a wink and nod toward the Confederate flag-waving supporters and made a speech at Bob Jones University, which at the time banned interracial dating.

A lot of conservative Republicans remain steadfast against racial equality, which is not only guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution but inherent in the principles of a democracy.

In South Carolina, and elsewhere throughout the South, conservatives have blocked African-Americans from voting in elections and legitimized the Jim Crow practice of racial profiling. Segregation remains a quaint notion to a lot of Southern Republicans like U.S. Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi. Other conservative Republicans shamelessly attack the NAACP for its opposition to flying the Confederate flag [on the state capital grounds].

"Democrats must quit taking African-Americans for granted - for the good of the party and for the good of African-Americans," author Jonetta Rose Barras wrote in a recent op-ed column. "If Democrats want to avoid an erosion of their African-American base, they can start by opening the door for more and younger blacks to assume leadership posts. ... Most importantly, they can stop navel-gazing and do what Republicans are doing: Pay attention to the evolving African-American electorate."