The Obama Phenomenon: Toward a Multiracial Democracy

1. Toward a Multiracial Democracy: The Jackson and Obama Contributions

ONE Toward a Multiracial Democracy The Jackson and Obama Contributions CHARLES P. HENRy More than anything, I wanted harold to succeed; like my real father, the mayor and his achievements seemed to mark out what was possible; his gifts, his power, measured my own hopes. And in listening to him speak to us that day, full of grace and good humor, all I had been able to think about was the constraints on that power. . . . I wondered whether, away from the spotlight, harold thought about those constraints. . . . I wondered whether he, too, felt a prisoner of fate.1 —Barack Obama What young Black lawyer from Chicago with a degree from a prestigious law school and a mixed legislative record of reform and mainstream party voting in the Illinois legislature went on to win a historic general election after beating the Democratic Party favorite in the primary? The victor was known for his verbal eloquence and putting “people together who were really enemies of each other.”2 Some said he was a celebrity more than a local leader. No, the answer is not Barack Obama—it’s Harold Washington. In many ways Barack Obama’s election can be traced to Harold Washington ’s racially charged campaign to become Chicago’s first Black mayor in 1983. After Washington’s victory, Chicago-based Ebony magazine said the door was now open for a Black presidential run in 1984. And, indeed, Jesse Jackson, witnessing Washington’s success and participating in his campaign, decided to run for president shortly thereafter. 16 . CHARLES P. HENRy Given the scarcity of Black presidential campaigns, perhaps the campaigns of big-city Black mayors offer the best insight into the strategies and obstacles facing Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama. Beginning with the 1967 election of Richard Hatcher in Gary, Indiana, and Carl Stokes in Cleveland, Black mayoral candidates have tended to follow one of two strategies. The “insurgent” strategy often resembles a social movement more than a political campaign and is directed at mobilizing the candidate’s racial support base. The “deracialized” strategy attempts to downplay any racial issue as the candidate reaches out to form a broad coalition of supporters. Historically, most insurgent candidacies occurred earlier—Hatcher and Stokes in 1967, Kenneth Gibson in Newark in 1970, Coleman Young in Detroit in 1973, Maynard Jackson in Atlanta and Walter Washington in Washington, D.C., in 1974, Lionel Wilson in Oakland in 1977, Ernest Morial in New Orleans in 1978, Richard Arrington in Birmingham in 1979, and Harvey Gantt in Charlotte and Harold Washington in Chicago in 1983. Typically, the success of these campaigns rested on three factors: (1) a massive effort to register Black voters, (2) an extraordinarily high Black voter turnout in support of the Black candidate, and (3) picking up some support from White liberals. The issues were often the same from city to city—schools, jobs, housing, and police brutality. However, the issue of police brutality helps explain why these victories came when they did. The nation was swept by urban violence beginning with Watts in 1965 through Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968. With many cities burning and under martial law, politicians were joined by foundation executives, academics, civil rights leaders, and Black nationalists in new efforts directed toward Black inclusion and incorporation, often over the fierce objection of entrenched Democratic Party elites in these same cities.3 A second, “deracialized,” strategy is typical of more recent mayoral campaigns where African American candidates are running in cities with smaller Black populations or where both of the major candidates are Black. This deracialized strategy differs from the insurgent strategy used by the earlier generation of Black mayoral candidates in that it purposely avoids racially divisive issues and promotes “nonthreatening” images of racial cooperation. However, both strategies incorporate massive grassroots voter registration and mobilization strategies, revealing their dependence on expanding a base of Black core support. Perhaps the prototype for this deracialized campaign model was Tom Bradley’s successful 1973 bid for mayor of Los Angeles. On “Black Tuesday ,” November 7, 1989, a number of African American mayoral candidates following such a strategy were elected in cities such as Cleveland, Durham, New Haven, New York City, and Seattle. In the 1990s, Blacks were successful in gaining the mayoral office in Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MULTiRACiAL DEMOCRACy . 17 and Rochester using the deracialized model. Moreover, in Black versus Black races, some candidates charged...