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Historically speaking, this isn’t the first time an African-American man or woman

has campaigned for the Presidential nomination. In 1972 Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm became the first Af-rican-American woman to run for the Democratic Presidential candidacy, in addition to becoming the first African-American woman elected to Congress. Former Congresswoman Chisholm ran along side Socialist Worker Party rep-resentative Linda Jenness, and nomi-nated candidate Evelyn Reed, who had a record for her advocacy for women’s rights and her complimentary authored book, Women’s Evolution. Congress-woman Chisholm would only acquire 152 delegates, which was not sufficient to earn a seat in the Oval Office. Even-tually, men of color would have their shot at the Presidential Candidacy. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton and former Secretary of State for International Affairs, Alan Keyes are former presidential hopefuls. No-ticeably, Senator Barack Obama is not the first African-American to run for the Presidential nominee. However, a major factor in the current success of Senator Obama’s campaign has to do with the time period, affiliation and the lack there of government.

When Congresswoman Shirley Ch-isholm ran in 1972, we have to take into consideration that only fifty-two years prior women in America given the right to vote and cultural mind sets in Amer-ica appear to take longer to change and adjust. The point is, with women still barely considered equal to men, to be

a woman and African-American, could be compared to the Ralph Nadar & Matt Gonzalez ’08 ticket.

During the years of 1984 and 1988, Reverend Jesse Jackson, founder and leader of the RainbowPush Coalition Inc., initiated two attempts as the Dem-ocratic Presidential nominee. Rev. Jesse Jackson’s platform aligned on a couple of key issues that are still major issues for Senator Obama, the economy and

the fight for universal healthcare, the common denominator that Rev. Jack-son and Congresswoman Chisholm share is the time period and affiliation. It had only been nineteen years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which le-gally ended segregation. Although Rev. Jackson’s RainbowPush Coalition was all about making America the melting pot, images of afro’s, dashikis and Black fists were the prevailing scenes that White America had grown accustomed

to and if fifty-two years passed since Congresswoman Chisholm was going to be accepted, nineteen years was not a long enough time span for America to unlearn what the enslavement and Jim Crow eras had accomplished so well.

Insert Alan Keyes and Al Sharpton, who had their moments but they were far and few in between. Keys, who re-spectively in ’96, 2000 and ’08 had lack-luster campaigns, on historical note, he

Is AmerIcA reAdy for A BlAck PresIdent?

Issue #3 www.TheUrbanPost.com

02 Feature Cover Story

By Dale Coachman

With the possible fate of the 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate resting on the events leading up to November 4th, I’ve learned about people’s natural desire to believe in a common goal. When truth is the foundation, race could

be non-existent factor. Historically speaking, this is not the first time an African-American or a woman has

campaigned for the presidential nomination. In 1972 Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm became the first African-American woman to run for the Democratic presidential can-didacy, in addition to becoming the first African-American woman elected to Congress. Former Congresswoman Chisholm ran along side Socialist Worker Party representative Linda Jenness, and nominated candidate Evelyn Reed, who had a record for her advoca-cy for women’s rights, which she exemplified in her authored work, Women’s Evolution. Congresswoman Chisholm would only acquire 152 delegates, which was not sufficient to earn a seat in the Oval Office. Eventually, men of color would have their shot at the presi-dential candidacy. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton and former Secretary of State for International Affairs, Alan Keyes, are former presidential hopefuls. Notice-ably, Senator Barack Obama is not the first African-American to run for the presidential nominee. However, a major factor in the current success of Senator Obama’s campaign has to do with the time period, affiliation and the lack there of government.

We have to take into consideration that only fifty-two years prior to Congresswoman Chisholm’s candidacy, women in the U.S. were given the right to vote. One-hundred-and-two years preceding 1972, African-Americans were granted the right to vote. This lends me to believe that the cultural mindset appears to take longer to change and adjust. The point is, with women still barely considered equal to men, to be of African-Ameri-can descent and running for Presidential Office is a formidable challenge—but not impossible.

During the years 1984 and 1988, Reverend Jesse Jackson, founder and leader of the Rainbow/Push Coalition Inc., initiated two attempts for Democratic Party presidential nominee. Rev. Jesse Jackson’s platform aligned on a couple of key issues that are still major issues for Senator Obama, the economy and the fight for universal healthcare. The common denominator that Rev. Jackson and Congresswoman Chisholm shared is the time period and affiliation. Rev. Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition’s platform was America—the melting pot and it had only been twenty years since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which legally ended segregation. It was necessary for fifty-two years to pass for Congresswoman Chisholm to be accepted as a female candidate. With-out a shred of doubt, twenty years was not a sufficient time span for America to unlearn what the enslavement and Jim Crow eras had accomplished so well.

Alan Keyes and Al Sharpton, respectively, had their moments. Both were far and few in between. Keys had lackluster campaigns in ’96, 2000 and ’08. However on a historical note, he was the first African-American Presidential Candidate to run on the Republican

Party ticket. With regard to being “the first”, this title garners the immediate attention and scrutiny of the media, which can rapidly eradicate standing political issues or dominate previous praise. To a point, this will be addressed later. While Keyes was campaigning during the primaries of the ’96 election, he was detained by the Atlanta, GA police for trying to force his way into a debate, which he was not invited into. When the time came for Rev. Al Sharpton to run during the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, I would ar-gue that he was taken lightly. In addition to financial mishaps that befell Rev. Sharpton’s campaign, similar to Keyes’, he did not stand a chance.

So what’s the argument? Although these candidates never received the Presidential nomination, in a sense they have paved the way for Senator Barack Obama. With the negative stigmas and images that have been attached to the African-American male, is America truly ready to force race to take a backseat? The Presidential race of ’08 is situ-ated in a different political time period—a climate where people lack faith in their gov-ernment. With all the policies and tough discussions that lie ahead, although it is simply stated, America may be ready for a President who happens to be African-American. My hope is, that this country is indeed ready.

Is America Ready for a Black President?

Urban Post #003.indd 2 4/26/08 4:59:10 PM

By Dale CoaChman

03

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was the first African-American Presidential Candi-date to run from the Republican Party. If anything, Alan Keyes should be a prime example for Senator Obama of what not to do, because of the color of his skin. To a point that will be addressed later, the is-sue with being the first anything is the immediate attention that garners which results in the media’s scrutiny, which can rapidly eradicate and dominate previous praise. While Keyes was campaigning dur-ing the primaries of the ’96 election he was detained by the Atlanta, GA police for trying to force his way into a debate of which he was not invited, take heed Senator Obama, they’re watching. With the progress or lack there of when it came time for Rev. Al Sharp-ton to run during the 2000 and 2004 election, I would argue that he wasn’t taken that seriously and because of financial mishaps, Rev. Sharpton, like Keyes didn’t stand a chance.

So what’s the argument? Although these candidates never received the Presidential nomination, they did in a sense pave the way for Senator Barack Obama, who is situated in a different time period where people lack faith in their government. Even though it’s sim-ply stated, with all the policies and tough discussions and politics that lie ahead, America may be ready for a President that happens to be African-American. With the negative stigma’s and images that have been attached to the African-American male which started with the film, Birth of a Nation and the “rape scene” that never happened, to the dark skinned, aggressive, athletic, educated, incarcerated, gangster, comedic, well-spoken and most importantly, feared human on the planet, is America really ready to force race to take a backseat? My hope is, that this country is, which is why media outlets from CNN, MSNBC, to Fox, have called this one man a phenomenon, maybe what they fail to see and what America is finally see-ing, is the bigger picture.

Issue #3 www.TheUrbanPost.com

02 Feature Cover Story

By Dale Coachman

With the possible fate of the 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate resting on the events leading up to November 4th, I’ve learned about people’s natural desire to believe in a common goal. When truth is the foundation, race could

be non-existent factor. Historically speaking, this is not the first time an African-American or a woman has

campaigned for the presidential nomination. In 1972 Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm became the first African-American woman to run for the Democratic presidential can-didacy, in addition to becoming the first African-American woman elected to Congress. Former Congresswoman Chisholm ran along side Socialist Worker Party representative Linda Jenness, and nominated candidate Evelyn Reed, who had a record for her advoca-cy for women’s rights, which she exemplified in her authored work, Women’s Evolution. Congresswoman Chisholm would only acquire 152 delegates, which was not sufficient to earn a seat in the Oval Office. Eventually, men of color would have their shot at the presi-dential candidacy. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton and former Secretary of State for International Affairs, Alan Keyes, are former presidential hopefuls. Notice-ably, Senator Barack Obama is not the first African-American to run for the presidential nominee. However, a major factor in the current success of Senator Obama’s campaign has to do with the time period, affiliation and the lack there of government.

We have to take into consideration that only fifty-two years prior to Congresswoman Chisholm’s candidacy, women in the U.S. were given the right to vote. One-hundred-and-two years preceding 1972, African-Americans were granted the right to vote. This lends me to believe that the cultural mindset appears to take longer to change and adjust. The point is, with women still barely considered equal to men, to be of African-Ameri-can descent and running for Presidential Office is a formidable challenge—but not impossible.

During the years 1984 and 1988, Reverend Jesse Jackson, founder and leader of the Rainbow/Push Coalition Inc., initiated two attempts for Democratic Party presidential nominee. Rev. Jesse Jackson’s platform aligned on a couple of key issues that are still major issues for Senator Obama, the economy and the fight for universal healthcare. The common denominator that Rev. Jackson and Congresswoman Chisholm shared is the time period and affiliation. Rev. Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition’s platform was America—the melting pot and it had only been twenty years since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which legally ended segregation. It was necessary for fifty-two years to pass for Congresswoman Chisholm to be accepted as a female candidate. With-out a shred of doubt, twenty years was not a sufficient time span for America to unlearn what the enslavement and Jim Crow eras had accomplished so well.

Alan Keyes and Al Sharpton, respectively, had their moments. Both were far and few in between. Keys had lackluster campaigns in ’96, 2000 and ’08. However on a historical note, he was the first African-American Presidential Candidate to run on the Republican

Party ticket. With regard to being “the first”, this title garners the immediate attention and scrutiny of the media, which can rapidly eradicate standing political issues or dominate previous praise. To a point, this will be addressed later. While Keyes was campaigning during the primaries of the ’96 election, he was detained by the Atlanta, GA police for trying to force his way into a debate, which he was not invited into. When the time came for Rev. Al Sharpton to run during the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, I would ar-gue that he was taken lightly. In addition to financial mishaps that befell Rev. Sharpton’s campaign, similar to Keyes’, he did not stand a chance.

So what’s the argument? Although these candidates never received the Presidential nomination, in a sense they have paved the way for Senator Barack Obama. With the negative stigmas and images that have been attached to the African-American male, is America truly ready to force race to take a backseat? The Presidential race of ’08 is situ-ated in a different political time period—a climate where people lack faith in their gov-ernment. With all the policies and tough discussions that lie ahead, although it is simply stated, America may be ready for a President who happens to be African-American. My hope is, that this country is indeed ready.

Is America Ready for a Black President?

Urban Post #003.indd 2 4/26/08 4:59:10 PM

04


Barack Obama’s personality, passion and drive, was shaped by the family members who raised him. The son of an absentee Kenyan economist and a free-spirited intellectual, Obama was reared largely by his grandparents.

Obama’s father, Barack Obama, Sr.,

grew up on the Eastern coast of the African continent, in the Republic of Kenya. The son of Muslims, he later converted to Christianity, after initially challenging its precepts. Obama Sr. had both a wife and son in Kenya by age 23, but decided to leave in order to attend the University of Hawaii and study economics.

Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was

born in Kansas to Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. Their family often traveled due to Stanley’s military enrollment, but settled near Seattle, where Ann at-tended high school. Ann Dunham was a free-thinker-- a liberal, feminist, and intellectual. When her family eventu-ally moved to Hawaii, Ann enrolled in the University of Hawaii, where she then met Obama Sr.

Dunham and Barack Obama Sr. got married in 1961, while Dunham was pregnant with their soon to be born son. After Barack Obama Jr. was born, Ann left college to raise him, while Obama Sr. graduated and left for Har-vard to attend grad school.

Dunham, now a single parent, re-

entered college in Seattle before even-tually moving back to Hawaii. She divorced Obama Sr. in 1964, married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro, and moved with Soetoro and Obama to the distant country of Indonesia.

While raising Barack, Ann Dunham

was eager for the future President to share her social and political ideals. When Obama was just a child, Dun-ham used to play him tapes of Mar-tin Luther King, Jr. speeches, and did all she could to enrich his intellectual worldview.

When Obama was 10, Dunham sent

him back to Hawaii with her parents, so he could get better schooling. Obama’s grandparents, who he affectionately

BArAck oBAmAthe familythat Raised him

By hal PhilliPs

05


called “Gramps” and “Toot”, raised him over the next several years. Obama Sr. visited his son in 1971, the only time Obama recalls meeting his father.

Dunham returned to Hawaii for grad

school in 1972, but when she left for Indonesia again in 1977, the 16-year-old Obama chose to remain with his grandparents and attend his Hawaiian school.

Obama Sr. became a government

economist in Kenya, until a falling-out with the Kenyan president left his ca-reer ruined. He descended into drink-ing and poverty, dying in a 1982 car crash at the age 46.

Meanwhile, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham raised Obama during his cru-cial teen years. Madelyn was one of the first women to be a vice president of a major bank, giving her a reputation as

a trailblazer. When Obama graduated from high school, he thanked Gramps and Toot in his yearbook.

Ann Dunham stayed in Indonesia,

carving out a career in rural develop-ment. Shortly after Stanley died in 1992 at age 73, Ann was diagnosed with cancer and moved back to Hawaii. She died in 1995 at age 52.

Madelyn Dunham stayed in Ha-

waii, but her health took a turn for the worse in 2008. On November 3rd, the day before her grandson made history, Dunham passed away. She had filed an absentee ballot, so her vote for Obama counted.

Although Obama barely knew his father, his impressions of his Kenyan heritage left a deep impact on his self-image. Combined with his mother’s intellectual liberalism and his grand-parents’ stable yet trailblazing lifestyle, Obama’s upbringing came with some common threads: the world is a big place, and anything is possible.

06

Issue #3 www.TheUrbanPost.comUrban ostTHE

The SchoolS ThaT Shaped hiS MindBy Hal PHilliPs

Much has been written about Barack Obama’s early life, but not as much has been said

about his schooling. From private school in Hawaii to the Ivy League, Obama’s transformation from a troubled youth to a top law student was shaped by his various school experiences.

When a young “Barry” Obama relo-

cated from Indonesia to Hawaii, he en-rolled in Punahou School as a fifth-grad-er. Obama attended Punahou through 12th grade, graduating in 1979.

Punahou is the largest independent

grade school in the U.S., known for its athletic programs and its diversity. Obama attended with the help of fi-nancial aid, and his family took great pride. “For my grandparents,” Obama has said, “my admission into Punahou Academy heralded the start of some-thing grand.”

But from the beginning, Obama’s eth-

nicity and foreign background led to taunts. On his first day, one child asked if “Obama’s Kenyan father ate people”. Obama became acutely aware of cultur-al and racial differences between him-self and other kids. In seventh grade, a classmate called Obama a “coon,” and Obama punched him in the nose.

By high school, Obama played on

the school’s acclaimed basketball team while also excelling academically. In interviews his former classmates have said that Obama truly seemed mature for his age. But unbeknownst to them, Obama faced internal struggles about his self-identity.

Obama attended college at Los An-

geles’s Occidental College. He said he chose Occidental “because I’d met a

girl from Brentwood while she was va-cationing in Hawaii.”

Occidental is a small liberal arts col-

lege and Obama initially picked up where he’d left off: playing basketball and goofing off, with no paticular as-pirations.

However, something happened at

Occidental: Obama became politically aware. He got involved with an anti-apartheid movement on campus, culmi-nating in a major speech he gave before a large audience. It was this first taste of helping a larger cause that stirred something in Obama, and he began to take his future more seriously.

To his friends’ surprise, Obama’s be-

havior suddenly changed. He spent less time playing basketball and more time studying. He ditched the nick-name “Barry” to stop hiding his heri-tage. And he realized that he wanted a future in public service.

After his sophomore year, Obama

transferred to Columbia, in New York City. He felt he needed a fresh start with different people. At the same time, he also yearned for a bigger stage. Obama had realized that he wanted to place him-self on a path that could lead to great-ness, leaving his youthful indiscretions and lack of ambition behind for good.

Columbia is a highly selective Ivy

League school. Obama’s academic ex-cellence at Occidental allowed him to transfer, and he arrived at Columbia as a man with a mission.

Obama majored in political science,

with an international relations focus. While he participated in further anti-apartheid movements, extracurricular ac-tivities took a back seat for Obama. He’s

later said he was like a monk at Columbia, spending all of his time in the library and studying intensely. Obama threw himself into academics, writing his senior thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament.

Obama graduated knowing he want-

ed to devote himself to public service. Formerly self-destructive and unmoti-vated, the new Barack Obama had been inspired in college to make the world a better place.

Obama spent most of the next five

years as a community organizer. At age 27, he reentered the Ivy League by en-rolling in Harvard Law School.

Harvard Law is one of the nation’s

top law schools, with many alumni who have gone on to powerful government

positions. Obama’s stellar academic re-cord gained him admission, and by the end of his first year, he’d been selected as an editor at Harvard Law Review.

In his second year, he was elected as

the first black president of Harvard Law Review, one of the most prestigious law reviews in the nation. His selection earned national headlines, and even got him a book deal. Obama was on his way to being an important national figure. He took summer jobs at presti-gious law firms, graduated magna cum laude, and moved back to Chicago to settle down and begin his career.

Obama taught constitutional law at

the University of Chicago Law School from 1992-2004. He did this part-time while practicing law, engaging in com-

munity activism, and eventually serv-ing in the Illinois State Senate.

The University of Chicago Law

School is a highly-ranked law school, and Obama was a popular professor there. He taught courses in due pro-cess, voting rights, and racism and law. He turned down tenured professor po-sitions, choosing to instead serve in the Illinois Senate.

In 2004, Senator Obama was elected

to the United States Senate. Meanwhile, the University of Chicago remianed his home base while he entered politics and rose through the ranks. He con-tinued teaching there part-time until he left for Washington, where a career as a senator and later as a president would await.

07

www.TheUrbanPost.com Issue #3Urban ostTHE

roAd to the WhIte house

By marina riCCi

traditionally, when political red states and towns start going blue, that is a hint

that something historical is bound to happen. At the start of midnight on nov.

2, 2008, the citizens of dixville, notch, n.h. voted

in sharp contrast to four decades of voting there, as 15 out of 21 citizens leaned

towards obama. the last democratic candidate to

win dixville was hubert humphrey in 1968.

08


09


Not only did Dixville go blue but states that tra-ditionally have gone

Republican turned a shade that most people were not used to seeing on result screens as votes came in. Indiana, that is a pre-dominately Republican state and has only gone to the Democrats once in the last 40 years, went for Obama. It was the same case for Virginia and North Caroli-na. But all eyes were on Florida which proved to be the determi-nant factor which was harshly proven in the 2000 election. In 2008, however, Florida vot-ers highly favored the Demo-cratic nominee and so did Ohio, New Mexico and Pennsylvania.

Less surprising but equally im-pressive was Obama’s ability to sweep the states of New England and the Northeast, such as Mary-land and Delaware, as well as the states in the mid-northern part of the US such as Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. As ex-pected, California, Oregon and Washington on the West Coast followed suit.

Obama’s path to the White House included a strategy of be-ing competitive in every state and not only in states where victory seemed possible. The thought process behind this strategy was one followed by Barack Obama long before he became the front-runner to a run for the White House.

In the state senate, Obama be-came known for his ability to reach across party lines and com-promise for the good of everyone involved. After eight years in the state senate, Obama decided to try for the position that would catapult him to the presidency.

In 2004, Barack Obama ran for the national Senate seat in Illinois. He ended up winning in a land-slide. In Obama’s 2004 Democrat-ic convention speech, he called for a unification of conservatives and liberals to reach a better America for everyone.

His frankness and honesty

helped connect him to the Ameri-can public. Obama was also dif-ferent from other Presidential candidates because he did not come from a political family, he was not previously famous and he didn’t have as much political experience as many of his oppo-nents. While some thought this would be a shortfall in his cam-paign, it helped Obama because people could see themselves in a man who decided to run for a position not because of a title but because of the responsibility.

Obama announced his run for the presidency in February of 2007. While Obama steadily gained more convention delegates than his main opponent, Hillary Clinton, due to the closeness of the race, the Democratic cam-paigns started having a negative tone which Obama really wanted to avoid.

Super Tuesday, which should have determined the Democratic candidate, did not help the dead-heat between Obama and Clin-ton. Both candidates failed to win a clear majority of delegates and the race went on. Obama ended up winning 12 straight primary contests but Clinton won Ohio and Texas, which had a lot of del-egates.

Soon after, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson endorsed Obama and he started gaining superdelegates. Clinton was short on money and her path to victory was quickly be-coming an impossible task. Soon after, Sen. John Edwards, who had campaigned against Obama early on in the contest, gave his support to Obama. This helped Obama’s appeal to blue-collar workers.

Obama went on to win the Democratic nomination and his battle for the presidency would be against John McCain, a war hero. Obama ran on a campaign of change and tried to appeal to ev-eryone, regardless of race, age or economic status. He ran on a slo-gan of “Yes we can” which turned into “Yes we did” as he became the President of the United States, and the most powerful person in the free world.

10


Identified as a couple of inspiration, not only has the Obama’s political careers changed the chores of history but their love story has warmed hearts

across the country. The nation’s first African-Amer-ican President and first lady’s romance began with more optimism than spark. In the spring of 1988, Mi-chelle Robinson a first year attorney at Sidley Austin and a summer associate Barack Obama, began their journey as mentor and mentee. Michelle’s first im-pression of him came from a photograph before they met. Michelle’s assumption from that photo was that Barack was probably a pretty ‘dorkie’ guy with a funny name. After their first introduction they immediately realized their common interest, their genuine desire to fight for the under-privileged.

With this underlining commonality Barack found the courage to ask her on a date. Our President-elect being as determined then as he is now stayed on his steady path and was not deterred by her repeated rejections. Michelle was so opposed to inner office dating that she even tried to hook him up with other women.

“Eventually I wore her down,” Barack writes in his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope. As she gave in to his persistence and charm they began their first date with a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, followed by drinks at the top of the John Hancock building. The evening continued with Spike Lee’s movie “Do The right Thing,” and afterwards sitting on a sidewalk curb over Baskin-Robins ice cream they shared their first kiss.

The Robinson’s test for anyone pursuing Michelle initiated with a game of basket ball with her broth-er, which to their family told a lot about a person. A Christmas visit to Honolulu is when the Obama family got a chance to know Michelle. Their love spark grew into radiant flames during their dating season when Barack took her to a familiar church basement he had known from his community organizing days. In-side that Chicago Southside church basement, Barack spoke to the small audience with faith and poise about how to, “work towards building the world as it should be.” And with that speech Michelle saw a genuine per-

spective of him that moved her to new heights within her admiration for her future husband.

After two years of dating, the couple became seri-ous about marriage possibilities and began to estab-lish a shared personal and political vision. Michelle’s initial frustration that Barack might not be looking

mIchelle & BArAck A true love storyBy niCole murray

11


for marriage eventually came to an end. Over desert at Gordon’s, a swanky Chicago restaurant, a box with an engagement ring was delivered on a plate by the waiter. They were married in Trinity Church of Christ on October 3, 1992 with a reception to follow at the South Shore Cultural Center.

Within the same year of their marriage Barack be-gan his practice with a civil rights law firm in Down Town Chicago, Barnhill & Galland. In 1992 Obama resigned from his position of the founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies before Mi-chelle took over to become the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in 1993.

In 1997 our future President was sworn in to the Illinois Senate and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. Despite Michelle’s concerns Barack delivered the keynote address in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention. Estab-lishing himself as a rising democratic star through his obvious passion and supreme oratory skills, new political doors were opened for him, thus beginning the long and tedious journey towards his ultimate historical presidency.

After six years of marriage the couple’s first daugh-ter Malia Ann was born in 1998 and in 2001 their sec-ond daughter Natasha, nick named Sasha was born. The Obama girls will be the youngest in 31 years since

Amy Carter to live in the White House. The President and First Lady have made it a priority to keep the girls lives as normal as possible. “I’m a mother first. And I’m going to be at parent-teacher conferences, and ... I’m going to be at the things that they want me to at-tend. I’m not going to miss a ballet recital,” says Mi-chelle Obama.

The Obama union serves as a foundational refer-ence of a true love story.

12


Technology and young people go hand in hand, and Barack Obama’s campaign knew this

from the start and ran a campaign that utilized both technology and young people in a way that had never been done in any campaign prior. In the end, this strategy has lead to a historical win that has broken all barriers and has now become the model for all future campaigns that will follow.

It all started with a little known elec-

tion law in Iowa that allows 17-year-olds who will turn 18 by Election Day in November to caucus in January. Obama’s campaign grasped this notion and brought it to a much higher level as they not only got young voters involved in the campaign but they got them ex-cited about politics. This was not an easy feat to achieve.

Obama’s campaign knew that us-ing technology, primarily the internet, could not only appeal to young people

technology And the youth: how they both assisted him to victory By marina riCCi

but to the internet-using population overall. In every sense, this year’s presi-dential election has been dubbed the beginning of the internet presidency, a change from the time of the television presidency that started with JFK.

President-elect Barack Obama had a lot of supporters but these support-ers weren’t only gained by making calls and going door-to-door. They were made supporters through the use of the Internet. Nothing was off-limits as Google Maps, YouTube and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter were utilized to the fullest as the candidate who wasn’t really that well known just a year earlier gained instant stardom. Users of YouTube spent 14.5 million hours watching Obama campaign videos. Economi-cally, this was a genius choice as television commercials would have had an astronomical price tag for the same type of coverage.

In addition to the Internet, Obama asked supporters for their cell phone numbers and blasted text-messages when important announcements were made, such as the pick for Vice-Pres-ident. Obama even had a custom so-cial networking site created just for his supporters with the help of a Facebook

co-founder. This network helped sup-porters find other people who they could call out to and persuade to vote for Obama.

The results spoke for themselves. 3.2 million people donated to Obama’s campaign through the campaign Web site alone. Obama’s Facebook page has 3.5 million supporters and his official Facebook application had 161,000 ac-tive users during the campaign. Ac-cording to Twitterholic.com, Obama’s Twitter account reached 123,000 fol-lowers, making it the most popular ac-count on Twitter at the time.

Bloggers were also busy as close to 500 million blog posts mentioned Obama (Trendrr.com). In addition, Obama had over 840,000 MySpace friends.

Obama’s campaign knew they hit gold when many of their supporters came in the form of University students. They were old enough to vote and they were excited for change. Early on, Obama organized college chapters and worked hand-in-hand with them to organize rallies.

Students and technology mix well and according to a Harvard poll, 75 percent of college students have a Face-

book account, and most check it daily. The Obama campaign understood that younger voters were more mobile and needed a campaign that suited their way of life, especially since young people ended up being one of Obama’s largest donor groups.

E-mail was also used to appeal to young voters as young campaign vol-unteers and staff members would ana-lyze online voter data and send e-mails to undecided voters, hoping to get their support. Then they would e-mail established supporters in hopes that they would spread the word. The effort didn’t stop there as the e-mails would then be followed up with text messages, Facebook reminders, telephone calls and house visits.

Volunteer mobilization also used the language closest to young people and the Internet. The campaign was able to use e-mail communications to gather volunteers, print out Google Maps of their location and then use social networks to provide lists to the volunteers of numbers and locations of people that needed persuading to vote for Obama.

While the technological effort didn’t come cheap, it was well worth the ef-

fort, helping raise a record-breaking $600 million for Obama. The campaign spent millions on hardware, software and Internet consultants, but in the end, he not only won the Presidency, but he also revolutionized the way that candidates do business with voters. And Obama also gained the vote of 66% of the 18-29 year olds that voted in this election, over 15 million young people.

Not surprisingly, Obama’s use of tech-nology did not end when the campaign ended. Rather, as Obama transitions to the White House, his technological effort will transition with him in the form of Change.gov, the custom-made site for supporters following the transi-tion. Obama hopes to use the Web to measure voter attitudes and to truly create a conversation and consensus between the government and people… via e-mail, of course.

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Issue #3 www.TheUrbanPost.comUrban ostTHE

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December 1st, 1955, and November 4th, 2008, signify two milestones that couldn’t be further apart from

each other both in time frame and possibil-ity. The former date houses the bleak period for when an unknown Alabama seamstress was arrested for unlawfully sitting in the front section of a public bus that was reserved for whites only. The latter date serves as the his-toric night that the Democratic Senator from Chicago secured the most powerful position in the free world, becoming the first African American to do so.

In between these two extremely significant dates lie rivers of blood and turmoil that have been endured by previous generations. Per-sisting through these challenges has helped thrust the civil rights movement forward to an era where the content of ones character truly supercedes skin color. This is what finally al-lowed an African-American to become Presi-dent of the United States.

There are many parallels both historically and politically that have been shared by the forefathers of these two separate movements.

To link their similarities solely to race would serve both leaders and their political ideals unjustly short. The similarities of Mar-tin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama, start within their altruistic thought processes and their intense work efforts to carry out their respective agendas.

Both historical icons were able to effectively utilize political figures and the everyday citi-

from “I hAve A dreAm” to “yes We cAn”

By Daryl nelson

zen to affect social climates and change unfair do-mestic practices.

In the beginning stages of the civil rights pe-riod, the administration of President John F. Kennedy approached King about establishing an agreement between King and local businessmen in the South’s segregated cities. King strongly desired integrated lunchrooms, bathrooms, and other public facilities without harassment by law enforcement or opposing local citizens. President Kennedy pushed for an agreement in a desperate attempt to quell rising tensions and a potential uprising among southern blacks. Meanwhile, Martin Luther King, Jr., continually kept pressure on the President and Washington to bring civil rights to the forefront of the coun-try’s consciousness.

To say that Martin Luther King, Jr., simply paved the road for Barack Obama’s presidency would be a harsh understatement. King, and others like him, ac-tually built a road that did not exist prior to his cru-cial involvement.

Similar to Barack Obama, King was able to inspire young people to involve themselves in the process of social change, and was successfully able to escort many of the youth away from political indifference.

Barack Obama was able to follow Martin Luther King’s blueprint of impassioned speeches and grass-roots organizing, and to birth movements that would eventually have a global impact.

Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War was a princi-pal campaigning platform that he used to distinguish himself from other candidates on both sides of the

political party line.

In a July 2008 speech, Obama said, “This war dis-tracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize. This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century.”

Barack’s desire to dramatically shift the course of the war and change the global perception of the U.S. mirrors Martin Luther King, Jr.’s critiques of the Viet-nam War in the 1960s.

As a pacifist, Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke against President Lyndon Johnson’s administration for its policies and military occupation of Southeast Asia. This stance was against many of the political and civil right leaders’ opinions of the war, and King was criti-cized for his public opposition.

In a speech concerning Vietnam, King said, “Some of my friends of both races, and others who do not consider themselves my friends, have expressed dis-approval because I have been voicing concern over the war in Vietnam.”

Addressing the disproportionate number of blacks in the Vietnam War, King continued, “The Negro must not allow himself to become a victim of the self-serving philosophy of those who manufacture war that the survival of the world is the white man’s busi-ness alone.” This was at the cost of popularity points by some of his contemporaries.

Similarly, Barack’s opposing issues with the Iraq War also drew criticism from those that were in full support of it. Both leaders established themselves as

stand-alone free thinkers, not afraid to shun main-stream opinion.

An additional likeness between King and Obama is their successful attempts of breaking racial divisions and involving people outside of the black community to join their powerful movements. They were both aware that an effective movement cannot begin and end simply with race loyalty. Common concerns such as job opportunity, decent wages, and healthcare were also issues that shared the same level of urgency.

Barack Obama was only two years old when Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Al-though they had come to excellence through differ-ent backgrounds, experiences, and racial times, they shared a dream that neither race nor ethnicity would hinder a person’s opportunity to achieve desired goals. Both leaders focused on not only fixing the social, financial, and employment deficiencies in our society, but the moral ones as well.

It has been a long and hard 53-year walk from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil rights beginnings to Ba-rack Obama’s historical victory. Many believe that Obama’s win signifies the completion of a seemingly lofty dream. Others believe that, although, this is a huge step in race relations, it is merely a step among many more steps that the country must take.

Regardless of one’s outlook, one cannot deny that racism has declined. All were forced to reevaluate their stance on both the political process and race relations, and this necessary re-evaluation would not have been able to take place without the parallel ef-forts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and President Ba-rack Hussein Obama.

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In the year of the worst stock market crash in American his-tory, a man that would light up

millions of people and change his-tory was born. On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to Alberta Wil-liams King and Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. Martin already had an older sister, Willie Christine King and a younger brother, Alfred Dan-iel Williams King, was born merely a year earlier. Ironically, both father and son were named “Michael” and not “Martin” originally. The change took place in honor of Martin Luther when the family went to Europe and visited Germany in 1934.

The church had a very strong influ-ence on King. He was part of the choir at an early age, performing in 1939 at the Atlanta premiere of “Gone with the Wind.” Not only could he sing wonder-fully, but King was extremely bright, skipping both the ninth and twelfth grade at segregated Booker T. Washing-ton High School. He started college at the fresh age of fifteen. Afterwards, he entered Morehouse College, his father’s and grandfather’s Alma Mater. Though he contended with being younger than most of his counterparts he graduated timely with a Bachelor of Arts in soci-ology.

After college, King went on to realize his dreams. He enrolled in the Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Penn-sylvania, where he was elected the Pres-ident of his predominately white senior class. In 1951, he received his Bachelor of Divinity degree. At the prime age of 22, King entered Boston University and started on his pathway to a doctorate

degree in systematic theology. There he met the woman who would become his wife.

Coretta Scott was a student at the New England Conservatory of Music. On their first date, King told her “The four things that I look for in a wife are character, personality, intelligence and beauty. And you have them all.” A year later, on June 18, 1953, King married Scott in a ceremony that took place in Heiberger, Alabama, on the lawn of Scott’s parents’ house. In 1954, King be-came the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala-bama. Furthermore, on June 5, 1955, at just 26, King Jr. received his Doctor of Philosophy. Throughout his studies, he was influenced by many but none were

as instrumental to his ideas and life as Howard Thurman. Coincidently, Thur-man was King Sr.’s classmate at More-house College and became a mentor to King. While King studied at Boston University, he would often consult with Thurman who was then the Dean of Marsh Chapel at the University.

Thurman would often meet with Gandhi, and following in the footsteps of his mentor, King went to see Gandhi in India in 1959. The message of non-violent resistance really struck a cord with King and he was determined to apply this message to his fight for civil rights in America. While still in India, King spoke in a radio address, stating, “Since being in India, I am more con-vinced than ever before that the meth-

od of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahat-ma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”

The defining moment in King’s young life came when he was sitting on the Executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The committee looked into the case of Rosa Parks, who on De-cember 1, 1955, refused to give up her bus seat and was arrested. This led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott that was led by King, lasting for about 382 days.

the stArt of A dreAm By marina riCCi

20


Martin Luther King, Jr.’s path toward fight-ing racial injustice began early, dating back to his 20s. After excelling in school

and becoming a pastor in Alabama, a few key figures influenced King’s goals and philosophies. These influential allies transformed King from a pastor to one of the 20th century’s most important civil rights leaders.

Back home, King came under the tutelage of Ba-

yard Rustin, a prominent African-American civil rights leader. Rustin, also inspired by Gandhi’s teachings, took King under his wing, becoming his main advisor in the early years of King’s activism. Inspired by Howard Thurman, Rustin, and Gan-dhi, King was ready to make his mark.

The opportunity came on December 1, 1955,

when Rosa Parks, a black woman in Montgom-ery, refused to relinquish her seat to a white bus rider. Edgar Nixon, the local N.A.A.C.P. leader, saw this as an opportunity to galvanize opposition to Montgomery’s segregationist bus seating poli-cies. Nixon selected King to lead this opposition because he felt that King, new to Montgomery, had not yet been intimidated by the city’s leaders.

For the next year, King led the famous Mont-

gomery bus boycott. This boycott received nation-al attention and gave King his first taste of national celebrity. It also showed him the accompanying danger: at one point during the boycott, King’s house was bombed. However, the 1956 Supreme Court decision Browder vs. Gayle finally struck down Montgomery’s bus policies. In his first ma-jor struggle for civil rights, King had succeeded.

By 1957, King had helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an association that sought to organize black churches in the South to promote non-violent protests for civil rights.

As King’s national profile grew, so did the danger level: King was stabbed in 1958 at a book signing, narrowly surviving.

With the aid of the S.C.L.C., King continued

to organize non-violent protests, hoping me-dia attention would create sympathy among the public. In 1961, King visited, Albany, GA, to advise a coalition seeking to organize non-vio-lent protests. Intending to visit for just one day, King instead got caught up in a mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators. King declined bail un-til the city made concessions in its segregationist policies. When those concessions were ignored, King returned to Albany and received a 45-day prison sentence. Wishing to avoid controversy, the local police let him go, essentially kicking him out of jail.

In early 1963, King spent months in Birming-

ham, AL, working on a project to fight the city’s racist economic policies. King organized a move-ment to non-violently break unfair laws and pro-voke arrests, hoping to get attention by filling the jails to overflowing. The project ended in success: Birmingham changed its policies, Connor lost his job, and King grew even more famous.

By then, King was controversial enough for

Attorney General Bobby Kennedy to order his phones wiretapped. He was also important enough to help organize the August 28, 1963 March on Washington. At this, one of the largest civil rights gatherings to date, King gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.

By then, the transformation was complete. King

was the nation’s foremost civil rights leader, and would continue to actively organize civil rights campaigns until his tragic assassination in 1968.

from student to ActIvIst

By hal PhilliPs

21


After Rosa Parks adamantly re-fused to give up her bus seat in 1955, King led the Montgom-

ery Bus boycott, the first of many non-violent protests that he would lead for social and political change. The boycott lasted 382 days, resulting in the vindic-tive bombing of King’s house, but it led to the United States District Court rul-ing that ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses.

Shortly after this period, King led various marches on the right for blacks to vote, as well desegregation, labor right and equality in education, hous-ing, and gainful employment. After staunch protest efforts an inspiring amount of these laws were eventually passed into law, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In 1961, the Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Alba-ny, Georgia and in December of that year, the SCLC and King became involved. This vital movement gathered thousands of citizens to fight every aspect of segre-gation in the city and it ended up attract-ing nationwide attention.

On December 16, 1961, King was ar-rested in a mass arrest of the non-violent demonstrators. He bravely declined bail until the city made concessions to re-lease him from imprisonment. When King returned to the community in July 1962, he was sentenced to 45 days in jail or a $178 fine. He ultimately chose jail.

In the spring of 1963, the Birming-ham campaign was enacted as a stra-tegic effort to end the city’s segregated civil and discriminatory economic policies. It lasted two months and its tactics were to create an atmosphere of urgency that would force negotiations and end unjust practices.

In order to employ these tactics, King and the SCLC began Project C which was a series of needed sit-ins and marches which were also meant to pro-voke vital attention which often came through visual demonstration and ar-rest. During the protest, high-pressure water jets and numerous police dogs were used on children and adults in attempts to douse the rebellious spirit that was shared by the mistreated com-munity. At the result of the successful protests an increasing amount of the segregation practices started to dimin-

ish, this in turn increased Kings local and national popularity.

In 1963, the March on Washington was supposed to be an event that would put at the forefront the conditions of blacks in the southern part of the United States. Specific demands made during the march included an end to racial segregation in public school, laws prohibiting racial dis-crimination in employment, protection for civil rights workers from police brutal-ity and a two dollar minimum wage for all workers. The famed “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial would be examined, dissected and cher-ished by future generations. The March on Washington became the largest gathering of protesters in Washington’s history.

The SCLC and King also tried to or-ganize a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery to occur on March 7, 1965. However, the march was never realized as there was an influx of mob and police violence aimed at the demonstrators. This day would forever be known as Bloody Sunday, which was the turning point in gaining support for the Civil Rights Movement.

King was not present at the march and it was carried out against his wishes so he decided not to endorse it. Neverthe-less, he attempted to organize the march again on March 9. There was an order blocking the march until further hear-ings but King led marchers and held a short prayer session before asking sup-porters to disperse in order to not violate the court order. On March 25, the march went ahead as originally planned.

In 1966, King wanted to organize a march in Chicago, spreading the move-ment north. It was during this time that King and his supporters uncovered the practice of racial steering, where hous-ing requests proved to be discriminato-ry when tested against couples of differ-ent races with the same exact income, background and number of children.

Much to everyone’s surprise, the marches in the north were far less ami-cably received than in the south, and King had to cancel one of the marches due to fear of violence. After finish-ing in Chicago, King left Jesse Jackson, then a seminary student, in charge of the organization in the area. Jackson went on to organize Operation Bread-basket, which was aimed at chain stores that treated blacks unfairly.

hIs Protest And rAllIesBy marina riCCi

22


An advocate of brotherhood, un-derstanding and non-violent protest in the face of injustice,

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is often char-acterized in modern memory as a cham-pion of peace amid chaos. While not the first to speak of civil disobedience and methods of non-violence, King was dedicated to acting as a self-proclaimed “agitator,” pushing adamantly for racial equality while refusing to use physical force. This combination approach was unique in its level of success among the efforts of his African-American prede-cessors and contemporaries.

Beyond his unique approach, it was King’s ability to unify and mobilize those around him which began to cre-ate momentum for the burgeoning civil rights movement. Bringing together the community of Montgomery, Alabama, he organized the non-violent 1955 bus boycott that would lead to an end of segregation on public transportation. Thus, King became a controversial public figure very rapidly. A dedicated and experienced preacher, he regularly turned to his Christian principles of re-sponding to enemies with forgiveness. He urged in his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, “We must not allow our cre-ative protest to degenerate into physi-cal violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” Notably refraining from placing blame on any race while discussing the struggles of slavery and racism, he argued that rac-ism and intolerance themselves must be countered with mutual acceptance among races.

By contrast, some earlier African-American activists did not seek to pro-test their status, but called on newly freed slaves to seek education to best as-

similate into white culture. At the other end of the spectrum, some of Dr. King’s contemporaries, including Malcolm X and members of the Black Panther Party, endorsed violence as a response to racist attacks and saw no value in in-tegrating peacefully with anyone.

Malcolm X was openly critical of King’s method of non-violence, which he viewed as a weak, misguided ap-proach to overcoming racial inequal-ity. At a 1965 speech, he declared, “The only thing power respects is power.” He argued that there was no sense in de-ciding not to strike back with violence if one’s family and community are hurt, and succeeded in convincing many an-gry victims of racist brutality to agree and act accordingly. Malcolm X’s goal to create a state of black supremacy by any means was not at all like Dr. King’s, although both were willing to press the status quo by breaking laws if necessary.

The example of Mahatma Gandhi, whose non-violent protests had suc-cessfully contributed to India’s separa-tion from the British Empire, greatly influenced Dr. King’s perspective on civil disobedience. As president of the Southern Christian Leadership Confer-ence (SCLC), an organization dedicat-ed to promoting civil rights, King and his like-minded constituents, including prominent activists Ralph Abernathy and Bayard Rustin, endeavored to de-mand the attention of political and eco-nomic leaders through walkouts and boycotts. They believed, as Gandhi had, that they were right in breaking unjust laws in a peaceful manner.

Still, not all black leaders supported Dr. King’s approach. While jailed in Birmingham for boycotting segrega-tion notices posted throughout the

city, Dr. King was met with disapproval from his fellow clergymen for setting an example of disobeying the law. He responded by expressing his own dis-appointment in their preferring order, a “negative peace,” over justice, naming passivity as a greater enemy to freedom than staunch opposition. His letter addresses in depth the pain of racism that he mainly alludes to in speeches, acknowledging the cruelty of having to be treated like a thing, and to ask his family to endure regular degradation. Like Malcolm X, he found the state of racial inequality intolerable. However, his strategy was to utilize civil dis-obedience only after negotiation had failed, when it became crucial to create a “constructive, nonviolent tension…to open the door to negotiation.” The rac-ist signs in Birmingham were removed

shortly after King’s release.

Dr. King’s prominence is underscored by such honors being invited to confer personally with President Kennedy, be-ing named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1963 and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. His measure of his success, however, was that without using violence while still refusing to let their cause go ignored, he and his supporters had mobilized millions of people and overturned laws that long had prevented them and their families from living happily. Dr. King’s work and his methods helped break through centuries of an existing racial mindset, contributing to the movement toward an environment of justice and racial equality that had never existed before in America.

the method of non-vIolence

By emily Foley

23


The final speech of Dr. Martin Lu-ther King, Jr.’s life is often viewed as prophetic, as it relates Dr.

King to Biblical figure Moses, who led his people toward a God-given Prom-ised Land he himself would not reach. Now, forty years after Dr. King’s 1968 assassination, an African-American has been elected to the highest office in the United States. The changes in laws and attitudes for which civil rights ac-tivists fought in those years have made such an election possible, and it is that success which symbolizes to many, that Dr. King’s Promised Land may indeed have been reached.

Early in 1968, Dr. King faced consid-erable criticism from other civil rights leaders for organizing the “Poor People’s Campaign,” an effort to advance the economic situation of Americans of all races. King’s critics, including his close associate and adviser, Bayard Rustin, who felt that trying to help other races was anything from a waste of time to an insult to African-Americans. Dr. King’s arrival in Memphis that spring, where he planned to lead a sanitation worker’s strike as part of the Poor People’s Cam-paign, was delayed due to a bomb threat against his plane. It was in this atmo-sphere of uncertainty and danger that he delivered his “Promised Land” speech.

Adding to the air of foreshadowing was Dr. King’s ready acknowledgement that he, like Moses, might not reach his Promised Land with his support-ers. In previous speeches, Dr. King had inspired audiences with his ideas, en-couraging people to join him in pursu-ing a dream. This speech, however, car-ries a tone of realism, reassurance and affirmation against doubt. He urges his supporters to see the necessity of hold-ing fast to one another and refusing to abandon their cause. Referring to the enslaved Israelites Moses led, he tells them,” When the slaves get together, that’s the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.”

Reaching beyond religious imag-ery for much of the speech, Dr. King

chronicles personal experiences, re-counting the hardships he and his sup-porters had faced. He reminds them of Birmingham, Alabama protests of

public segregation notices, and their tenacity in the face of attacks, which led to the protest’s success. Respond-ing to the frustration he knows they

feel, he encourages them by saying, “It’s all right to talk about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here!” He outlines specific plans for them to carry out, including the sanita-tion workers’ strike, store boycotts and bank boycotts, as if leaving them guid-ance for his coming absence.

Using rhetoric of fearlessness and satisfaction, Dr. King closes with an an-ecdote to illustrate the faith that others, perhaps unexpectedly, have in him. Af-ter nearly dying in a stabbing attack, he had received a letter from a young girl who wrote that while it should not mat-ter, she was white, but that she wanted to tell him how happy she was that he had survived. The story represented that racial equality was not the cause of only adults, or only African-Amer-icans, but a reminder that to reach Dr. King’s Promised Land, racial equality must be considered essential among all people of every race.

It would be unfortunately naïve to sug-gest that such a complete end of racism has been achieved in the decades since Dr. King gave his last speech. However, the election of Barack Obama, an Afri-can-American, to the office of United States President, does demonstrate that the majority of America, and much of the highly approving world, has chosen to move beyond the racial barriers of the past. Mr. Obama, whose oratorical skills and reputation as a unifier have drawn comparisons to Dr. King, is well aware of the success, hope and potential he repre-sents not only to those who lived through the civil rights movement, but to people of all races and ages who no longer see barriers for their ambitions. In this re-spect, it is fair to say that the country has reached the Promised Land. As Mr. Obama spoke on the night of his election, “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

the PromIsed lAnd

By emily Foley

24


mArtIn luther kIng & WAshIngton d.c.By niCole murray

Only a truly remarkable individ-ual’s legacy could become the only United States citizen to

have a national holiday in their honor. Martin Luther King Junior’s leadership during the civil rights movement and his lasting impact in the progression of equality and many other issues is a force worthy of many life times dedi-cated to his legacy and dream. It is no doubt that King was born as a man of distinction and purpose.

King’s first inspiration towards the path of civil rights came in 1955 through Rosa Parks’ plight as she re-fused to give up her seat on a segre-gated bus. Her arrest drove King along with Ralph David Abernathy, Edgar Nixon and Bayard Rustin to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted thirteen months, ending with a decision by the Supreme Court that bus segregation laws were deemed uncon-stitutional on December 20, 1956.

With Abernathy and Rustin, King formed a new organization committed to pioneering nonviolence strategies in the struggle for civil rights. The South-ern Christian Leadership Conference held this motto, “Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed.” King used his influence through this organization, his peaceful marches and speeches to fight for voting rights, la-bor rights for blacks and desegregation. In 1958 King wrote the ‘Stride Toward Freedom’, which explained his views on non-violence and the boycott in Mont-

gomery. The book brought significant attention that lead to the start of stu-dent sit-in at, a protest to integrate res-taurants and stores. King understood the considerable economic power that African-Americans held by making up 10% of the population at the time; he advocated boycotts for segregated in-dustries similar to the bus boycott of 1955. In his speeches across the country to promote the involvement of the civil rights movement he often spoke about the declining financial effects that com-panies would experience if African- Americans would shop selectively from stores that were not segregated and avoid stores that still segregated their work force.

During the civil rights movement King stressed the importance of the political power African-Americans could have through voting. In the Deep South, states such as Mississip-pi, blacks made up 42 percent of the population but only two percent were registered to vote. These statistics en-couraged King to organize registration campaigns to utilize this political pow-er. After John F. Kennedy (JFK) argued for a new civil rights act, 70 percent of the African-American votes went to him in the 1960 election, which proved the political force that African-Ameri-can’s held by the evidence of Kennedy’s narrow victory. Kennedy pointed out in a speech made on national televi-sion in 1963, “The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the sec-tion of the nation in which he is born,

has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day; one third as much chance of completing college; one third as much chance of becoming a professional man; twice as much chance of becom-ing unemployed; about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year; a life expectancy which is seven years shorter; and the prospects of earning only half as much.”

King became one of the ‘Big Six’ along with Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young Jr., John Lewis, Philip Randolph and James Farmer, who organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug 28, 1963. The monumental march served as an attempt to sway Congress to pass the legislation that Kennedy purposed. On the forty-fifth anniver-sary of this legendary “I Have a Dream” speech our nation’s first African-Amer-ican President commemorated that day with his acceptance of the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the United States.

Kennedy and Kings Advocacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were significantly instrumental in securing the bill’s pas-sage. The Civil Rights Bill was still be-ing debated by Congress in November 1963 when JFK was assassinated, leav-ing his impact and Lyndon Johnson’s influence on Congress to get the leg-islation passed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 required employers to provide

equal employment opportunities with the potential termination of federal funding to those employers if there was evidence of discrimination based on race, color or national origin.

With these two essential Acts being passed he shifted his focus towards all Americans living in poverty by under-standing the connection between race and wealth. “For the last twelve years we have been in the reform movement but now, we have moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolu-tion,” King said in a speech in Selma, Alabama.

Kings legacy and influence will be and has been honored for more than 40 years after his assassination. He has been awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 by President Carter and three years later President Ronald Reagan signed the bill to create a na-tional holiday in his honor. President George W. Bush dedicated the Mar-tin Luther King Memorial in Novem-ber 2006. Our President-elect Barack Obama said, “Like Moses before him, he would never live to see the Prom-ised Land. But from the mountain top, he pointed the way for us - a land no longer torn asunder with racial hatred and ethnic strife, a land that measured itself by how it treats the least of these, a land in which strength is defined not simply by the capacity to wage war but by the determination to forge peace - a land in which all of God’s children might come together in a spirit of brotherhood.”

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“ for the last twelve years we have been in the reform

movement but now, we have moved into a

new era, which must be an era of revolution”

26


While Martin Luther King, Jr., will always be associ-ated first and foremost with

the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, he had another, equally im-portant passion: his family. A devoted husband and father, King balanced his social crusades with his family obliga-tions, sometimes struggling to handle both.

The road to King’s marriage began in

the early 1950s, shortly after he moved to Boston to get his Ph.D. at Boston University. King called a local friend, Mary Powell, and asked if she knew any girls with whom he might get along. Powell recommended her good friend, Coretta Scott.

Scott was a student at the New Eng-

land Conservatory of Music, studying for a degree in voice and violin. She was also involved in political activism and civil rights advocacy, including membership in the local N.A.A.C.P. When King called Scott and asked her on a date, she agreed.

As Scott later recounted, her first im-

pression of King was not positive. At 5’ 7”, he appeared too short and unattract-ive. But Scott’s opinion changed, she said, when King started talking. He so impressed her with his eloquence that, she said, he “grew in stature”. At the end of their first date, King told Scott, “You have everything I have ever wanted in a wife... character, intelligence, personal-ity, and beauty.”

Over the next several months, King

and Scott continued their courtship, and it wasn’t long before they de-cided to get married. However, fam-ily tensions delayed their marriage for some time. Most notably, King’s father, Martin Luther King, Sr., did not approve of Scott. After a longer courtship than King and Scott had expected, King finally stood up to his father, telling him that, whether he gave his approval or not, King would marry Scott.

Finally, on June 18, 1953, King and Scott were married in a simple cer-emony on her mother’s front lawn in Alabama. King’s father, having finally come around to accepting the mar-riage, officiated at the wedding. That night, King and his new bride spent their wedding night in a black funeral home, because no local white-owned hotel would book them.

After Coretta completed her degree,

the Kings moved to Montgomery, Ala-bama in 1954, where King became the pastor of a Baptist church. In 1955, as King began his career as a civil rights leader by organizing the Montgomery bus boycotts in response to the Rosa Parks incident, Coretta gave birth to the couple’s first child: a daughter named Yolanda. The Kings would have three more children: Martin III in 1957, Dex-ter in 1961, and Bernice in 1963.

Family life initially caused conflict

between the Kings: Coretta, with her history of political activism, wanted to share a public leadership role with her husband, while King felt his wife should focus on staying home and rais-ing their kids. They didn’t always have an easy time bridging this divide: in the early 1960s, an F.B.I. wiretap picked up a telephone conversation in which the couple argued about their roles. How-ever, the Kings eventually managed to compromise, and Coretta took part in the bus boycott and several other of King’s activities, most notably lobbying for the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

After King’s assassination in 1968,

Coretta took up his mantle as the leader of the American civil rights movement. Coretta expanded the role, advocating equal rights for groups such as women and gays. She opposed apartheid in the 1980s, lobbied for a national holiday in her husband’s honor until it was grant-

ed in 1986, and founded the Martin Lu-ther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent So-cial Change in Atlanta. Coretta passed away in 2006, at age 78.

King’s children were inspired by

their parents to carry on their work. Martin and Bernice helped revive their father’s old organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. When Coretta stepped down from running the King Center due to poor health, Dexter took the reins, followed by Martin. Yolanda worked with organizations such as Habitat For Humanity and the Hu-man Rights Campaign, and passed away in 2007 at age 51. Bernice achieved prominence as both a min-ister and a lawyer, and founded the Be A King scholarship at Spelman College. Most recently, Martin has founded Realizing The Dream, an organization dedicated to promoting non-violent conflict resolution.

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the urban post issue #3

Documents

africanamerican woman

congresswoman shirley

congresswoman chisholm

presidential hopefuls

presidential nomination

congresswoman chisholm

africanamerican man

america ready