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32 Barack and Me I first met Barack Hussein Obama in Boston, Massachusetts, at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I first heard of him when he ran in the 2000 Democratic primary for the First Congressional District in Illinois against the incumbent Bobby L. Rush. Bobby and I were sworn into Congress together in 1993, and while I did not get involved in the 2000 race, my sentiments were with Bobby Rush, who was not only my classmate and a son of the South, but had seconded my nomination to be president of the freshman class for the Second Session of the One Hundred Third Congress. Bobby had developed quite a political reach across the poverty-wracked First District in South Chicago, and his politics were the politics of those of us who had moved to political activism as the next tool for social change. Barack Obama was the director of the nonprofit Project Vote and had become known as a good fund-raiser with connections in the upper levels of Michigan Avenue . He had been described in a January 16, 1996, Village Voice article as part of a “new breed of foundation-hatched black communitarian voices . . . a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable do-good credentials.” In the Gullah parlance I had come to know and respect in South Carolina, Rush was a “benya,” and Obama was a “cumya .” He lost to Bobby nearly two-to-one. But much like me after my heart-breaking loss to a “benya” in 1970, Barack Obama did not let a little thing like a defeat stymie his ambitions. By the time he and I met, he was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate from Illinois and was widely considered to be an up-and-comer in Democratic Party circles. Our first meeting was by chance as we were preparing for our speeches at the 2004 Democratic Convention. It was Obama’s first convention address, and it was my second. But he was the keynoter, and I was one of scores of three- or four-minute evening fillers whose remarks few—if anyone—would remember. It goes without saying that Barack’s keynote address was historic and memorable , and it launched his pursuit of the presidency of the United States. I have since heard him deliver other memorable speeches, including his March 18, 2008, Philadelphia speech on race, his powerful 2009 inaugural address, and his soul-stirring address following the 2011 shootings at Tucson, Arizona. After his 2004 election to the United States Senate, Obama came to several of the weekly meetings of the Congressional Black Caucus, and we often sat next to 290 The Age of Obama each other and exchanged small talk. We would not have a substantive discussion of his presidential aspirations until one day as we were gearing up for the 2006 election cycle. We sat down for a one-on-one over sandwiches and sodas in the little hideaway on the first floor of the Capitol, which I occupied at the time as chair of the House Democratic Caucus. He told me what he had in mind, and this time we didn’t waste a lot of time on small talk. There had been black presidential candidates before, and we had duly given them “favorite son” or “favorite daughter” status before joining in the affirmation of support for a white candidate. In my own case I had supported nontraditional candidates as diverse as Shirley Chisholm and Frank Church, and I had even said some nice things about George Romney at one time and was the only nonwhite member on the official flight to Richard Nixon’s funeral. The prospect of a competitive black candidate for the presidency, however—for all its historic implications—could be fraught with incalculable complications. Every black Democrat in America would be subjected to constant scrutiny as to whether our loyalties lay with race or party. It was too early in the process for me to do anything more than anticipate those complications as Obama and I had our brief meeting . I was mostly listening. I wondered about his loss to Bobby Rush and about the description of Obama as a “smooth Harvard lawyer . . . with impeccable do-gooder credentials,” and I began to manufacture the image of him attending a barbecue fundraiser in Kingstree and working the crowd at my “World Famous Fish Fry,” an event that began as a thank you to my statewide supporters and grassroots Democratic Party activists and has...

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