Obama's 2008 Election: Race, Civil Rights & Social Media

Introduction: A Historic Election

History was made in November 2008 — not just American history, but world history — as the United States elected its first African-American President. The election of a Black man as President, as unheard of as it might have been just fifty years ago, or even twenty-five years ago, was historic because it represented a national catharsis: a repudiation of the greed, avarice, and selfishness that had characterized American society for the preceding eight years. Obama's election was a referendum on a new America — a younger America with an optimistic, but not naive, view of the grave and serious problems it faced. It represented a dramatic departure from past politicians in that Obama stood for more open government, dialogue with international actors who might disagree with American policies, a standard of excellence and honesty that he himself embodied, and a genuine desire to change the way government is to how government "can be" (Glasrud and Wintz, eds., 2009).

Some have postulated that there was a racial dimension to the Obama election. In its most basic form, of course race was a factor — he is African-American. But rather than seeing that as the reason for his election, it is more accurate to say that Obama spoke to the electorate in new ways and engaged younger, more vital voters through the use of technology and social networking platforms (Franklin, 2009).

It was not the Black vote alone that put Obama in office — only 13% of the electorate were of African-American descent. Nor was it just liberal Democrats. Rather, it was a broad coalition of Americans who said, upon exiting the polls, that they had "had enough" of the way the Bush administration had treated them. They wanted someone who, to paraphrase John Locke, would offer a social contract granting the people of America the ability to pursue their own inalienable rights to freedom, justice, and self-actualization. Additionally, this campaign, like no other before it, utilized social networking tools to put the candidate in direct contact with constituents. For the first time in history, a candidate was more than a voice on television — he was accessible, he commented regularly, and he was "just like the rest of us" (Ifill, 2009).

For the academic observer, this election represents some very interesting cultural and political trends within the body politic of the United States. Within American society, the sociological struggle for civil rights — not just for Black Americans, but for all Americans — has been part and parcel of the national narrative since the end of the Civil War (Franklin, 2005, 118–21). The story of civil rights is really the early history of the Obama campaign, and the problems and concerns of society that animated his campaign were part of this longer struggle. Indeed, the Obama campaign cannot be understood without understanding the Civil Rights Movement as a whole.

Civil Rights History and Its Legacy

The five decades from the 1950s to the millennium were, in United States history, both tumultuous and exciting. There were sweeping changes in the social, political, and technological arenas that make the World War II era seem quite primitive by comparison. Since 1950, America has experienced a major cultural revolution, at least four major military conflicts, rapid technological growth, new and virulent diseases, a President who resigned rather than face impeachment, the fall of the Soviet Union, vast improvements in telecommunications and transportation, and several economic crises (Gross, 2008).

The 1950s were an era of dramatic change. America had been on the winning side of the war, and the resulting economic boom pushed the United States into the global spotlight. America was prosperous and expected to assist other nations, while simultaneously navigating its own social and economic growing pains. Several large-scale trends defined the decade: the Cold War between the United States and the U.S.S.R. intensified; Africa began to be decolonized, throwing the economic and political situation out of balance; the Korean War drew the United States into another global conflict; tensions escalated in Egypt with the Suez Canal Crisis and in Cuba with Castro's revolution; and America endured a turbulent period of anti-communist sentiment during Senator Joseph McCarthy's campaign targeting "reds in the State Department" (Halberstam, 1994).

The Civil Rights Movement, far from beginning in the 1950s, did achieve significant gains during that decade. These gains occurred not because of any single person or group, but because of a movement that coalesced and solidified even through adversity. Perhaps the time was right: Black Americans had served in World War II, exposing some white Americans to race issues for the first time; meanwhile, the country's focus on anti-communism may have temporarily displaced race from the center of public debate. It is also important to remember that it was not only brave African-Americans who led the fight for justice — college students and religious leaders of many races played vital roles. These activists employed legal challenges, civil protests, and other initiatives to bring the issue of race into the living rooms of middle-class Americans.

Not all African-Americans agreed on the manner in which the struggle should be waged. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a primary advocate of peaceful change — reasonable dialogue, and taking the arguments of Thoreau and Gandhi to heart. King believed that if enough people openly but peacefully disobeyed unjust laws, those laws would ultimately fail (Vanoue, 2002, 14–18). In contrast, as millions of African-Americans migrated from the rural South to the North and West seeking new jobs, they demanded higher pay and a more egalitarian system. This migration, combined with increased mechanization of agriculture in the South, dispersed the African-American population more widely across the country.

It is also notable that most Americans — politicians especially — supported the decolonization of African nations and equal rights for those populations, while holding contradictory views in their own backyard. Legal challenges abounded, the most famous being the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional. By denying anyone the right to an education, the Court held, many institutions in the South were denying basic constitutional rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

While the ruling was a major victory, when in 1957 the Little Rock, Arkansas school district was ordered to desegregate, Governor Faubus refused, arguing that states had the right to administer their own schools. In the fall of 1957, Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent African-Americans from entering Little Rock Central High School, and even in the infancy of television journalism, Americans were shocked to see white mobs attacking Black children. With the world's eyes on America and President Eisenhower desperate to reassert federal authority, federal troops were called in to protect the students. Governor Faubus subsequently closed the schools in 1958 and 1959. Despite this resistance, the Movement reinforced the principles of peaceful coexistence and the establishment of legal authority for all races. What made the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s so important was not necessarily the battles that were won, but the preparations made as the decade drew to a close (Jackson, 2006).

These foundational issues — Brown v. Board, Martin Luther King Jr., and the shifting attitudes of the American public toward minorities — are what made the Obama victory so historic. Without the struggles and the legacy of the 1950s, the story would not have unfolded the same way. Obama "had the right temperament; he ran not 'as the black candidate, but as a candidate for President who happened to be black'" and he showed that white voters "were willing to embrace a black man who did not make them feel guilty about race" (Ifill, 2009).

For society as a whole, Obama was demonstrably intelligent and yet respected that Americans were as well. He articulated this vision in his own words:

Political Advertising and Propaganda

"…the country recognizes that the challenges we face aren't amenable to sound-bite solutions. People are looking for serious solutions to complex problems. I don't think we need more moderation per se — I think we should be bolder in promoting universal health care, or dealing with global warming. We just need to understand that actually solving these problems won't be easy, and that whatever solutions we come up with will require consensus among groups with divergent interests. That means everybody has to listen, and everybody has to give a little. That's not easy to do" (Obama, 2008).

Sociologically, Barack Obama's run for president touched something profound in America, awakening a civic engagement, pride, and passion that many had perhaps abandoned. In the course of his campaign, Obama inspired millions of Americans — young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban, and from every racial and ethnic background. The goal, of course, is that in politics as well as society, race plays no part in the decision-making process. Thanks to previous civil rights advocates, and figures like Jesse Jackson, Obama was not the first minority to seek high political office. This is even more significant when one realizes that the election was not won on race, but on a combination of issue-focused appeals and effective targeting of the segments of the electorate in which his message resonated most strongly (Metzler, 2008).

Conclusion: Toward a Post-Racial Society

It may be idealistic to suggest that we simply bury the issue of race; however, overt discrimination is waning. It has become a clear and enforceable crime to discriminate. There is no reason to believe that anyone in today's society cannot achieve whatever he or she wishes — hard work and diligence will pay off, and eventually race and gender will cease to be determining factors. The goal is to make race and gender irrelevant. The Obama election was certainly a milestone in enabling this form of punctuated evolution in modern American society. In striving to build a society modeled after Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream, the issues of race and gender can recede, leaving people to be judged solely on their character, skills, and ability to perform — whether in a learning, teaching, or professional environment.