Beyond politics, many blacks see personal hope in Obama campaign

Playing with her 3-year-old granddaughter on a recent summer day, Monique Davis saw that a collection of magazines caught the young girl's eye.

On a nearby table rested Brittany Spears' image splashed on one cover. R&B crooner Usher posed for another. A third graced movie star Angelina Jolie.

But the child bypassed the entertainment stars, took a finger and pointed to a Jet Magazine.

"Barack Obama!" the girl shouted.

"'What do you know about Barack Obama," Davis, a Democratic state representative from Chicago, said she asked her. "I thought, 'Why would this little baby see a relationship to Barack Obama?'"

Exactly what Obama's campaign means to black Chicagoans remains as diverse an answer as the candidate himself.

Over the past several weeks, the Daily Herald has talked to Chicagoland African-Americans and asked them what a black presidential president would mean to them.

To some, his candidacy evokes memories ranging from the struggle from slavery, the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King to Harold Washington's mayoral run. For others, there's a renewed belief that improbable dreams can come true.

Truly Anthony, a resident of Chicago's Southside, has witnessed and lived through the struggle, triumph and evolution of race relations in America throughout her 92 years.

Born in Mississippi, later moving to Chicago with her husband in the early 1940s, she marched alongside the Rev. Jesse Jackson in downtown Chicago during the sixties. Anthony won't forget the racial injustices she and others witnessed and endured and sees Obama as a sign of true change.

She said she believed America would one day see an African-American president - but she wasn't convinced it would happen in her lifetime.

"I prayed for the Lord to send us a black president before I leave this world," Anthony recalled. "As soon as I saw him I said, 'The Lord sent him to us for such a time as this.'"

Growing up, Nick Jones wasn't nearly as optimistic. The 24-year-old black Chicagoan questioned when or if a day would come when America would have a black presidential nominee.

Jones has become increasingly frustrated about the role athletes and entertainers play in children's lives, and said Obama has positioned himself to not only be the first black president but also a role model that can inspire all people - especially African-Americas.

"It's just a changing of the guard of what kids want to be like - more than being a rapper and an athlete, more than what they see on the street corner," Jones said. "He's gone and far exceeded the expectations of what a black man can do - coming over from Africa, to being in slavery, to civil rights, to Jim Crow laws - we came so far."

But some scholars question what, if any, impact Obama's campaign will have on politics in Chicago.

Despite Obama's popularity in the city, Dick Simpson, former Chicago alderman and current political science department head at the University of Illinois at Chicago, questions whether any change will occur, arguing that too many old-fashioned politicians continue to mold Illinois politics today. He said it remains to be seen if Obama's campaign has created a movement in Chicago or elsewhere.

"It becomes a movement if it has staying power beyond one candidacy - It's not clear if there's that organizing effort that would be needed to overthrow the old guard," he said.

But a budding crop of politically savvy teenagers like 17-year-olds Amanda Thompson and Josh Johnson could represent the future of politics in Chicago, especially among African-Americans. The two say they have seen firsthand how Obama has inspired young people. Thompson, who turns 18 next month, said she will vote for Obama, and said his presidential bid piqued her interest public office. While Johnson won't be old enough by Election Day, he said the presidential candidate has nothing to worry about in the distant future.

"I've got him on the second term," Johnson said.

Many suggest Obama's presidential bid also paves the way for more acceptance of interracial couples. Some see his diverse background, a mother from Kansas and father from Kenya, as a means for a more tolerant America.

Samantha Woolever, 17, of Chicago, said she can relate to Obama's story. Woolever is white. Her boyfriend is black. At times she grows weary of the disapproving stares from their peers and others.

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., a Chicago Democrat, said the potential image of an African-American family in the White House would have a profound effect on black children.

"For a young African-American child to wake up one day and see in the Rose Garden two African-American girls plucking roses, playing in the garden, and experiencing the bounty of that which is America," Jackson said, "is a new birth of freedom for all of us."