Black voters protest Bush during the recount.

As President-elect George W. Bush prepares to step into the presidency, he will have to live up to his campaign motto of being a "uniter and not a divider." He faces a House and Senate that are balanced. He faces a nation that was turned off to both him and Vice President Al Gore, as half of the eligible voters didn't vote in the Presidential election. And of those who voted, half voted against him.

The divide Bush faces isn't any more apparent than when it comes to his reception in the black community. Bush received a paltry 8 percent of the black vote, meaning black voters voted 9 to 1 against him. His talk of compassionate conservatism didn't go over with black voters, who wanted more substance than a catchy cliché.

And since the election, the mood in the black community has grown even more hostile as a result of the recount controversy in Florida. Accusations of black voter intimidation taking place at the polls, disproportionately many faulty voting machines in black neighborhoods and blacks being expunged from voting rolls strike a chord with African Americans, many of whom can remember the battles fought to get the basic right to vote.

"There is this sense within the black community that Bush represents the evil empire," said Mikel Holt, the editor of the Milwaukee Community Journal, a black newspaper. "This perception of him didn't improve during the recount controversy, as blacks felt that Republicans circumvented the recount process in Florida."

Holt's point can be seen in polling on the post-election mood of black voters. According to a recent Gallop poll almost seven in 10 blacks (68%) feel cheated after the election. Fifty percent of blacks say Bush stole the election, compared to 26% of white Democrats. While there has been talk of bipartisanship in the congress and in governing, black voters don't feel this bipartisanship will address their concerns.

In a CNN/USA poll, only 22 percent of blacks polled -- compared to 67 percent of whites -- said they thought Bush would work hard to address the interests of black Americans. This is bad news for the President-elect who wants to be "uniter not a divider." But fortunately for him, there is room to improve. His appointments of Colin Powell to Secretary of State, and Condeleezza Rice to be the National Security Adviser, have gotten him off to a slightly better start with a skeptical black populace. But, as far as these two appointments are concerned, the Bush administration will have to come up with a complete foreign policy agenda, which was something that wasn't articulated on the campaign trail.

"They are going to have a balanced foreign policy that not only looks at Europe and the Middle East, but they will have to have an agenda that addresses Africa and the Caribbean," said Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson, the author of The Disappearance of Black Leadership. During the presidential debate, Bush stated that Africa was not a U.S. interest, inflaming the energy behind a campaign against him in the black community.

Dr. Robert Smith, a black political science professor at San Francisco State University, said that visible black appointments can help Bush make inroads into the black community, but coming up with a comprehensive domestic policy is more important. "He can make inroads into the black community, if he selects three or four domestic priorities, and he sticks to them," said Smith.

One of the first issues he should implement is voting reforms that address voting rights, and felony disenfranchisement laws in most states -- laws that bar convicted felons from voting. Such laws negatively impact the black community, and if Bush leads a charge for rescinding them it would go a long way and repairing his image. Bush should appoint a panel to address these issues and look into election irregularities that took place all over the country last November.

With the recent announcement of Senator John Ashcroft, a rabid conservative, to head the Justice Department, this kind of progressive move seems unlikely, but it really would be a good start. Issues such as urban infrastructure investment, encouraging growth and economic development in urban areas, should also be addressed.

Another of the most important issues for Bush during his first year in office may be education. On the campaign trail, education was a key part of his stump speech, and should remain his focus in the first year of his presidency. Bush should address education immediately -- by supporting bills to rebuild failing schools, and adding more accountability to the public school system. He should get behind expanding charter school funding and implementing small-scale school voucher experiments in failing school districts across the country.

While these moves would inflame passions of NEA-backed Democrats to fight Bush, school choice support is actually strong within the black community. According to a 1999 study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 60 percent of African Americans favor school choice. And among the age group most likely to have children in schools (26-35), 70 percent do. Bush's recent meeting with black pastors was also a good start, one in which he talked about his plans to use faith-based solutions' to social problems such as drug treatment, welfare reform, and job training.

"The faith based initiatives are something that resonates with ordinary blacks," said Dr. Smith.

While the presidency of President-elect George W. Bush will be questioned in a large segment of the black community -- and he probably will throughout his presidential term -- if Bush stays focused on these agenda items, perceptions of him can only improve from the abysmally low state they are currently in.

Lee Hubbard is a San Francisco-based journalist, and can be reached by e-mail at superle@hotmail.com for any questions or comments.