ABSTRACT
The impossible has happened. In 2008 an African American won the presidential nomination of one of the two major parties. To understand the extraordinary nature of Obama’s capture of the Democratic nomination and its significance in the African American quest for universal freedom, one must locate the 2008 election in the historical context of the African American relationship to the two-party system. It is also necessary to analyze what happened in 2008 in relation to the role of blacks in the Democratic Party since the pivotal 1964 election. Finally, to fully understand the Obama phenomenon, it is useful to compare his campaign for the nomination with previous efforts by African Americans to win major party nominations, especially Jesse Jackson’s.
