AFP.com
Senator Barack Obama launched "an improbable quest" to become America's first black president, audaciously invoking Abraham Lincoln, the US president who ended slavery.
"I want us to take up the unfinished business of perfecting our union, and building a better America," Obama told a crowd of thousands in temperatures of minus 11 degrees Celsius (13 Fahrenheit) in Lincoln's hometown.
"You didn't come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be," said the Illinois senator, 45, muscling his way into a packed Democratic field already dominated by New York Senator Hillary Clinton.
"In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope," said Obama, whose dazzling charisma has giddy supporters evoking comparisons to giants like late Democratic president John F. Kennedy.
Obama, son of a Kenyan economist and white American mother, after a stunning two-year rise to political celebrity, also pledged to bring US troops home from Iraq, combat global warming and offer health care to every American.
He reminded Americans that, unlike Clinton, he had opposed the war in Iraq as a "tragic mistake" -- though he was not in the US Senate when the 2002 vote to authorize the invasion was taken. "It's time to start bringing our troops home. It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war," he said.
Obama also called on Americans to unite in a new crusade of national purpose. "Let's be the generation that ends poverty in America ... let's be the generation that finally tackles our health care crisis ... let's be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil."
Beneath a cloudless blue sky and with a piercing winter sun which helped his choreographers suggest a new dawn in US politics, Obama was framed by the red-domed Illinois Capitol where Lincoln, Republican president from 1861 to 1865, warned "a house divided against itself cannot stand."
Huge American flags draped nearby buildings as a crowd estimated by local police at more than 15,000 erupted, as Obama strode to center stage, to the pounding beat of U2's "City of Blinding Lights."
"If you will join me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching before us ... if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our slumber, and slough off our fear ... then I'm ready to take up the cause," Obama said. (Transcript)
In 1908, Springfield was, a city of 50,000. After a married white woman's accused a black man of rape to cover a beating by her boyfriend, her lie was taken as gospel truth. On Aug. 14, as local newspapers fanned outrage, Springfield exploded and several thousand whites descended on the county jail intent on lynching the accused. When that was unsuccessful, they rampaged through the local black neighborhood, burning business and houses and driving 3000 blacks to the local sports stadium to escape the violence. Two elderly innocent black men were lynched. Ultimately the event and lack of justice in the non-response of the community inspired the establishment of the NAACP.
However, Obama's support within the black community is far from automatic. He angered many black leaders in Illinois when he beat a popular black woman state legislator in his first election.
Would Obama be 'the black president', given his heritage as the son of a white American mother and black Kenyan father?
Obama is like a "plaid quilt" in which people of different races see themselves, said Eddie Read, chairman of the Black Independent Political Organization. He fears this may leave Obama insufficiently committed to fighting for the black community.
"He would not be the black president. He would be the multicultural president," said Read. "A black president would fight for black economic and political power."
Obama's appeal to white voters leaves some black activists questioning the depth of his links to the black community, said Conrad Worrill, director of inner-city studies at Northeastern Illinois University.
"When white folks begin to put their arms around a black person, there's always suspicion," he said. "The question is: Will this generation of new, college-trained beneficiaries of the black political power movement in America fight for black political interests?"
[...]In a later response, the Rev. Al Sharpton questioned why blacks should back Obama simply because of his race. Sharpton argued that Obama himself recently endorsed Chicago's white mayor for reelection, over at least two black challengers.
"You really don't want to nationally say that blacks should do something for Obama that he himself is not doing at home," Sharpton told CNN. He continued: "I think what is intelligent and respectful to our community, as in any community, is to talk our interests and our issues."
With Obama's lack of experience, Clinton's lead and deep political machine, he has a long uphill battle ahead of him. I expect that he will end up as a running mate for the Democratic standard bearer.
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