Young, G.O.P. and Black

By Tamala M. Edwards/Albany

In civil rights lore, Albany doesn't get talked about much. That's because the small Georgia city, four hours south of Atlanta, is remembered as the place that turned back Martin Luther King Jr., sending the crusader home empty-handed. Albany sits in the heart of peanut country amid a dusty interweave of farm towns and red clay countryside. It's a world of tradition and habit; both dictate that this district belong to the Democrats. All the same, Albany is headquarters of Dylan Glenn's run for Congress, and if the 28-year-old wins, his election as the district's first Republican will be least among the reasons to cross-tab him in the history books. In a party defined for so long by its whiteness, Glenn is black. While most black Republicans complain of being ignored by the party, he has drawn money from such potentates as James Baker and Colin Powell. And in this majority-white district, the Democrat he has to beat, Sanford Bishop, is another black man.

A win by Glenn would be like a centennial bookend: the last Southern black Republican in Congress was North Carolinian George White, who left office in 1901. In the next 100 years, four other black Republicans would go to Congress. But for the most part the G.O.P., which once commanded black support as the party of Lincoln, earned the opposite image as the party on the wrong side of civil rights. With this precedent, it is startling that Glenn stands as a favored G.O.P. son. Two months before the primary, he has raised $360,000, most of it in fund raisers thrown from Los Angeles to New York City. His financial disclosure reports read like a Who's Who of the party, with three former Republican National Committee chairmen, a Rockefeller and pundit Mary Matalin contributing. He has a primary challenger, a white businessman who quotes "Stonewall" Jackson and is married to a former county peanut queen, which should mean that party officials must remain neutral. But Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran is ignoring protocol, having stumped for Glenn last December and narrated his campaign video.

Such backing is partly the result of Glenn's decades of networking. Even his most intimate friendships seem to have served a purpose. "My wife's cousin's son is Dylan's best friend," Cochran explains when asked how Glenn got his first job in Cochran's office. Pictures of George Bush, Newt Gingrich and other G.O.P. stalwarts stare down from the wall of Glenn's headquarters. But the support is not just the wages of bonhomie. Republicans know that as America becomes more ethnically diverse, they must attract more minority voters to retain the majority. "This is not about being the party of the moment but the party that looks ahead," says an aide to the Speaker, who made Glenn a delegate to a June White House Social Security summit.

Glenn was bred to be a Republican and straddle racial lines. The youngest son of a retired grade school principal and counselor, he grew up in Columbus, Ga., with parents who stood out for their affiliation with the G.O.P. "My father believed in individual responsibility and less government," says Glenn. He spent his last three years of high school at Episcopal, a D.C.-area boarding school, before heading off to Davidson College, a favorite of Southern gentry. That was followed by stints as a legislative aide to Cochran, a policy assistant in the Bush White House and convention adviser to the R.N.C.

His inner circle is made up mostly of whites, but he has also befriended Gen Xers like Yusef Jackson, son of Jesse. The balancing act is most evident in his campaign video, a multicultural melange showing Glenn with kids and farmers. At one point he is seen ambling with his parents and a golden retriever through the Georgia countryside. Dylan "never talked about race," says his mother to the camera.

What Glenn is highlighting these days is his ties to powerful Republicans, which he argues will give him more swat in Congress than either of his opponents. But that distinction could cost him in a district that is 39% black and deeply suspicious of the G.O.P. Says civil rights hero and Georgia Congressman John Lewis: "The question will be, Are you what we used to call a 'race man'?" Still, Lewis sees something else in the Glenn race: an emerging conservatism among young blacks--or at least a reluctance to sign up blindly with the Democratic Party. "As younger black professionals move up, they tend to move away from party affiliation. They could be up for grabs," he says. While most older blacks identify themselves as Democrats, a 1997 poll by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that 42% of blacks ages 26 to 35 classified themselves as independents.

If Glenn wins in November, the person he may need to thank will be Bishop. The Democrat eked out a 54% win over a white Republican two years ago in a district that is two-thirds white, but improved that standing with good constituent service--and an occasional visit to a rattlesnake roundup. "A lot of whites were scared to vote for a black, but Sanford changed all that," agrees R.S. Smith, 65, a white retiree in Bainbridge, looking over at Glenn. "Yeah, I'll give this fella a look."