ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses whether feelings toward black leaders are shaped by one's black identity. Using the 1996 National Black Election Studies data, the results suggest that black identity is a significant predictor of feelings toward Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Carol Moseley-Braun, and Kweisi Mfume. Marvin Olsen and Sidney Verba and Norman Nie found blacks with a strong sense of racial identity or group consciousness participated at higher rate in politics. Racial identity is an ambiguous and socially constructed concept. Residential racial composition, competition, and conflict have shown to affect black identity. The chapter explores the case of Barack Obama. In certain experiences, he encountered, during the primary election further solidified, the link between him and the black community. He had experienced what "most blacks" experience in the country, and that is racism. The chapter prefers to use measures of black identity that were multidimensional in nature, instead of one-dimensional measures such as linked-fate and racial salience.
