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U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, all but claimed the Democratic presidential nomination with a speech Tuesday night in Iowa, where he burst upon the national scene with a caucus victory earlier this year.
Obama’s supporters — mindful of the fact Obama has not officially beaten back the challenge of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton — are careful in how they describe this moment. But its historic significance can hardly be overstated.
Never before has a major party in the United States had a black man as its presidential nominee. Indeed, most states have never had a black man or woman elected to the U.S. Senate or to the governor’s office, the platforms that frequently produce presidential candidates.
The party Obama now leads was once in the vanguard of black oppression. Obama’s breakthrough victories, in Iowa and here in South Carolina, came with significant support from white voters. His overwhelming win in the Palmetto State saw him generate a wave of enthusiasm among black voters, energized in part by the prospect of a black politician who could win a presidential election.
Supporters and other political observers say Obama’s winning the Democratic nomination could alter the way white Americans see black Americans, just as it could change the way black Americans see themselves.
“Black men are more than just criminals and athletes,” said Kendall Corley, a Richland County Democrat and Obama supporter. “We can be politicians and doctors and lawyers, too.”
Carol Fowler, chairwoman of the S.C. Democratic Party and an Obama supporter, was blunt when asked if she had believed she would see a black politician as a presidential nominee in her lifetime.
“Frankly, no,” Fowler said. “Because I’m pretty old.”
The 63-year-old Fowler said she always wanted her party to live up to its “big tent” claim.
“It’s the sort of thing you believe could happen,” she said of having a black nominee. “It’s the sort of thing you hope could happen.”
It’s the sort of thing that almost didn’t happen for Obama, said Adolphus Belk, an assistant professor in the African American Studies program at Winthrop University.
Obama, Belk noted, had his path to the U.S. Senate eased by a late-breaking scandal that engulfed Jack Ryan, who was thought to be the Republican Party’s strongest candidate.
Ryan withdrew from the race after details of his divorce became public. Frequent presidential candidate Alan Keyes got the GOP nomination.
“Had that not happened so late in the game, maybe we don’t have a Senator Obama,” Belk said.
As he contemplated a bid for the White House, Belk said, Obama demonstrated he had one of the key ingredients most skilled politicians possess — the ability to sense when the time is right.
Unlike Bill Bradley, of New Jersey, who launched his presidential bid too late in 2000, and unlike former N.Y. Gov. Mario Cuomo, who never launched one at all despite pleading from some Democrats, Obama took the plunge, even though the biggest fish in his party — Clinton — was already in the water.
Once he was in, Belk said, Obama quickly established that his was not going to be a protest, cause or statement candidacy, like those of some of the black presidential candidates who had preceded him.
That meant his first order of business was making sure he was acceptable to white voters.
“He didn’t present himself in a way that made people think he’s a scary black man,” Belk said. “When you look at Obama, opposition to the war (in Iraq) was a factor. Charisma was another. Being able to excite people is a valuable tool. And he has charisma in spades.”
How far that charisma takes him this fall is anybody’s guess.
But Corley said having Obama at the top of his party’s ticket makes true for black Americans, for Americans in general, the words of the senator’s campaign mantra: “Yes We Can.”
“I think you inspire a new generation to dream big dreams and go out there and achieve them. For those who came from the civil rights generation, they can finally see what they worked so hard for, what they marched and got attacked by dogs for. Civil rights also mean political rights.”
Reach senior writer Wayne Washington at (803) 771-8385.
