Before setting his sights on the White House, Jackson had been a major presence on the national stage for nearly two decades. He was “bloodied up from the civil-rights battle,” as he told me last week, and already had won the allegiance of many blacks and the enmity of many whites.
Obama, in contrast, “did not come up through the ranks in our community,” says Jackson. Instead he “fell out of the sky in Boston,” a reference to how Obama was thrust onto the national stage after an electrifying speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Obama would not dispute this. He sees himself as a “post-baby-boom politician” who represents something different from those people–black, white, other–who came before him. But he acknowledges his debt to them. It is a “testimony to the sacrifices and struggles of previous generations,” to people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, he told me last year during an interview in Kenya, that he is where he is today.
That Obama is somewhat removed from the civil-rights struggle, is not well known to much of its leadership and–having been raised largely in Hawaii by his white mother and her parents–does not have a typical up-from-the-ghetto story has led some to wonder what to make of him. In a much-discussed column in New York’s Daily News, Stanley Crouch commented: “When black Americans refer to Obama as ‘one of us,’ I do not know what they are talking about … Obama makes it clear that, while he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own–nor has he lived the life of a black American.” Joseph Lowery, a former chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that King led, argues that Obama’s history should not count against him. “As we move further and further into the new century, we are not going to always be able to have people running for high office who are directly connected to the civil-rights movement,” he says. He describes Obama as a “a very impressive young man” about whom he doesn’t know enough.
Like much of the rest of America, in other words, civil-rights veterans wonder: who is Obama, really? They are also intrigued about Obama-mania and whether it “heralds, perhaps, the birth of a new day for fuller inclusion of blacks in the body politic,” says Wade Henderson, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
Much about America has changed since Jackson’s first run. A new generation has reaped the fruits of the civil-rights revolution. That is all for the good, says Jackson, as long as “civil-rights beneficiaries see their connection to the benefactors.”
Obama clearly understands that connection. At the same time, he cannot afford to be seen as one constantly catering to the civil-rights establishment. And he thinks black Americans know that. The black community, he observed during one conversation, is much more sophisticated than many people suspect. It has supported him, he pointed out, even though he speaks a “very universal language.”
Obama certainly does not have a lock on the black vote. Many blacks have political ties to, or feel deep affection for, the Clintons, and will therefore tilt more toward Hillary than Obama. Al Sharpton also has his fans. If he runs again, as he’s hinted he might, he could draw votes from Obama–though not very many, it seems. To win, Obama will have to put together the type of “universal” coalition no black politician has ever done at the national level. (According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, voters give Obama a 46 percent to 44 percent edge over GOP Sen. John McCain; Hillary is up 48 to 47. Both Dems lose by a hair to Rudy Giuliani.) One thing that makes him so appealing is his bedrock faith that that is possible, that he does not need to pit one group against another, that politics can be a constructive and unifying force. Of course, we have heard that message before. Now we have to see if Obama can deliver on it.
