Barack Obama's effort to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States

Barack Obama's effort to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States has been alive and well for more than a year.

The most surprising thing about his campaign, even after his win in Iowa, is how little fireworks there have been around the fact that he is a seriously viable African-American candidate. More has been made of race in recent weeks as the Democratic field has narrowed and the stakes have heightened.

Even so, the public, and even the pundits, seem remarkably unastounded by the fact that Obama could be the first black presidential candidate from a major party, and within a year's time, the first black president of the United States.

One reason why Obama's race has generated so little hoopla is the personal charisma and competence of the candidate himself. His speeches are delivered with polish and conviction, and none can deny that his message is principled, uplifting and of late, more substantive. He is a Harvard-trained lawyer, a U.S. senator, young, attractive and a great family man. His past life reveals nothing wayward enough to be politically damning. What's not to like? Still, these virtues do not fully explain why Obama's race seems to matter so little, when historically speaking, even at this inconclusive stage in the electoral process, his candidacy marks a major milestone in American politics.

Black political activity |has deep American roots
Notwithstanding his personal attributes, another reason why Obama's race seems relatively inconsequential is because he is part of a long legacy of black political activism in America. This legacy prepared the ground for him to speak his mind as an "American" candidate, not solely as an African-American candidate. (The two of course are not mutually exclusive.)

Thus when we define "politics" loosely as the artful garnering and deployment of power to establish a greater good, we might argue that black politics has existed since the earliest organized slave revolts, or since African-American Crispus Attucks helped to ignite the nation's fight for independence by giving his life in the Boston Massacre.

In 1829, David Walker made his politically charged appeal for freedom for enslaved citizens, linking him firmly to the antislavery movement that would soon become a powerful lobby in American politics. If we focus on conventional party politics from 1845 to the end of the century, we must acknowledge Frederick Douglass as one of the first and foremost black political figures in America. His work with the abolitionists to end slavery, his advisory role to Abraham Lincoln, his strong advocacy for Lincoln's Republican Party long after the Civil War, and his championing of women's rights, all involved political work with national implications. Historically speaking then, Barack Obama's political eminence is part of a long tradition of black political activism in the United States.

We might go on to cite the Reconstruction period in the South, 1865-76, as an era when blacks organized, voted and elected black officials to leadership positions in the Southern states, home at that time to the vast majority of African-Americans. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan, white backlash and the Republican Party's ideological shifts undermined these gains, but they did not extinguish black political organization and agitation for a better life and country.

Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois paved way
In the early 20th century, Booker T. Washington (first black ever invited to the White House) and W.E.B. Dubois had opposing political stances, but each sought to influence those in power to help move race relations forward. In the 1920s, Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association organized blacks to take control of their own destiny. Then in the aftermath of the Depression, and with the emergence of Democrats as champions of the dispossessed, blacks adopted the Democratic Party as the electoral vehicle to help them build a more perfect Union.
Out of the crucible of the New Deal, World War II and Korea came the Civil Rights Movements of the 1950s and '60s. "People" politics was used to achieve the greater good. People politics garnered its victories in the streets, but this tactic quickly shifted to a focus on the ballot box: Voting rights was a key platform item for Martin Luther King Jr., and even Malcolm X argued that change could come in one of two ways - the ballot or the bullet.

These black spokespersons and their political movements were locally based (Tip O'Neill's definition of all politics), but their powerful messages reached the highest echelons in American politics: the Kennedys, Johnson, and the landmark legislation that defined the Great Society. In the aftermath of the 1960s, there have been so many black elected officials and political appointments that it would be silly to try to name them all here. The point is that in American party politics, we are no longer surprised by the election of black mayors or governors, black state and federal legislators, politically appointed black judges, African-American heads of parties (Ron Brown), black campaign managers for presidential candidates (Donna Brazile), or respected black political pundits, Republican as well as Democrat, on the radio, in newspapers and on TV.

Chisholm, Jackson early presidential hopefuls
Black presidential candidates are not a rarity either: Shirley Chisholm was a presidential candidate in 1972; Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Coalition ran in 1984 and 1988; Dr. Lenora B. Fulani ran in 1988 and 1992; Alan Keyes threw his hat into the ring in 1996, 2000 and this year; Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton competed in 2004. Moreover, in 1996 and 2000, Republican Colin Powell had huge national support behind him for a run at the White House, though he declined to enter the race.

To be sure, Barack Obama is a unique and charismatic candidate in his own right. However, part of what makes his racial identity so unspectacular as an issue in 2008 is the political groundwork laid by African-Americans - and Americans generally - to bring the country more in line with its foundational ideals of liberty, justice, equality and opportunity for all.

However the elephant in the voting booth here involves timing. Race seems to mean so little in this election because Obama's message about the state of our union is, at this time, bigger than race. He presents himself as one who would rescue the country from pernicious divisiveness, self-serving, old school politics, governmental gridlock, poor leadership and the all but total disappearance of statesmanship. As a "unifier" and builder of coalitions that include race, Obama is not the first. But what stands more in the balance this time is the health of the body politic. That is, Obama's candidacy coincides with the desire of many Americans at this time to put the good of the country ahead of politics as usual. The good of the country is more important than race - or, as the slate of candidates reveals, than gender, age or religion. Americans seem to want a candidate who will bring politics and government back to the people, not just the parties. And race seems to pale in significance when what's at stake is the health of the political system itself.

Edward Washington is an associate professor of English and co-chair of the African-American Studies minor at Mansfield University.