The Long Road to the Presidency
Before Barack Obama raised his hand to take the oath of office on January 20, 2009, four decades of Black political courage had paved the way. The road to the White House did not begin in 2008 — it began in 1972, in Brooklyn, with a woman in a pantsuit and an afro who refused to be told her time had not come.
Shirley Chisholm: "Unbought and Unbossed" (1972)
"I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am Black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman and I'm equally proud of that. I am the candidate of the people." — Shirley Chisholm, 1972
In 1968, Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. Four years later, she did something no Black American had ever done: she ran a serious campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
What Made Her Campaign Revolutionary
- She entered 12 state primaries and won 152 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention.
- She did it with almost no funding, no machine backing, and constant sabotage from within the party.
- She was barred from the televised primary debates until a federal court ordered her inclusion.
- She received death threats throughout her campaign and was assigned Secret Service protection.
Her campaign was not a symbolic gesture — she actually competed. And when male Black leaders like Jesse Jackson and Amiri Baraka refused to support her (believing a Black woman "couldn't win"), Chisholm called it out plainly: "The country is not ready to elect a Black woman. They are not ready to elect a Black man either. But I am going to make them think about it."
The Scholarly Reckoning
Historian Anastasia Curwood has argued that Chisholm's 1972 campaign created a new grammar for Black presidential ambition — one that separated Blackness from masculinity as a prerequisite for national leadership. Without Chisholm, there is no template for what comes after.
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1968 | First Black woman elected to Congress |
| 1972 | First Black American to run in major party primaries |
| 1972 | Won 152 convention delegates |
| 1983 | Co-founded National Political Congress of Black Women |
Jesse Jackson: Two Campaigns, One Movement (1984 & 1988)
"Our time has come. Our time has come. Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end, faith will not disappoint." — Jesse Jackson, 1988 Democratic National Convention
Where Chisholm cracked the door, Jesse Jackson blew it open — twice.
The Rainbow Coalition
Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns built the Rainbow Coalition: a multiracial, multi-issue political organization that brought together Black voters, Latino farmworkers, Arab Americans, poor whites, LGBTQ activists, and peace advocates under one banner.
- 1984: Jackson won 3.3 million primary votes and 384 delegates — more than any Black candidate in history at that point.
- 1988: He did it again, this time winning 7 million votes and 1,218 delegates — finishing second in the Democratic primary behind eventual nominee Michael Dukakis.
The Policy Legacy
Jackson's campaigns forced the Democratic Party to adopt positions it had avoided:
- Apartheid sanctions against South Africa
- Palestinian statehood as a foreign policy issue
- Universal healthcare as a party platform
- A fairer primary system — Jackson's campaigns exposed how delegate math was rigged against outsider candidates, leading to direct reforms in how the Democrats allocate delegates
Historian Manning Marable noted that Jackson's 1988 campaign was "the most successful left-wing presidential campaign in American history" — a fact that his critics on both the right and the centrist Democratic establishment prefer to forget.
Lenora Fulani: Breaking Every Barrier (1988 & 1992)
"I am the first woman and the first African American to appear on the presidential ballot in all fifty states." — Lenora Fulani
While Jackson ran within the Democratic Party, Lenora Fulani of the New Alliance Party ran outside it — and made history that is rarely taught.
What Fulani Accomplished
In 1988, Fulani became the first woman and the first Black American to appear on the presidential ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia as an independent candidate. She won over 225,000 votes nationally.
In 1992, she ran again, receiving over 73,000 votes in the general election.
Why She Matters
Fulani's campaigns challenged something deeper than party politics — she challenged the two-party lock on American democracy itself. As a third-party candidate, she was required to gather petition signatures in every single state, often facing legal challenges designed to keep minor parties off the ballot. She fought every one in court and won.
Her work expanded ballot access law in ways that benefited third-party and independent candidates for decades after. She also forced a conversation about whether the Democratic Party truly represented Black political interests — or merely captured Black votes.
Fulani's story is rarely told in mainstream accounts of the Black road to the presidency precisely because she refused to work within the system that those accounts celebrate.
Barack Obama: The 44th President (2008 & 2012)
"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment — change has come to America." — Barack Obama, Election Night, November 4, 2008
On November 4, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold that office. He won with 69.5 million votes — the most votes ever cast for a presidential candidate at that time.
The Road That Made It Possible
Obama himself acknowledged the lineage:
- He announced his candidacy on the steps of the Illinois State Capitol — the same building where Abraham Lincoln had served.
- His campaign was built on a 50-state strategy pioneered in part by Howard Dean and informed by the Rainbow Coalition's organizing model.
- His grassroots fundraising — millions of small donors — echoed Chisholm's refusal of machine money.
- His Iowa caucus victory — in a state that is 91% white — proved what Chisholm had theorized 36 years earlier: that a Black candidate could win white votes on substance.
The Scholarly Context
Political scientists Michael Dawson and Cathy Cohen have both cautioned against reading Obama's election as evidence that America had become "post-racial." Dawson's concept of "linked fate" — the idea that Black Americans vote as a bloc because their individual fortunes are tied to the collective — explains why 95% of Black voters supported Obama in 2008, not simply because he was Black, but because Black political experience had taught them that representation matters structurally.
Obama's presidency produced the Affordable Care Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and the 2009 stimulus that prevented a second Great Depression. It also produced record deportations, an expanded drone war, and a failure to prosecute the bankers responsible for the 2008 financial crash — contradictions that Black progressive critics named clearly.
| Year | Candidate | Party | Votes / Delegates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | Shirley Chisholm | Democrat | 152 delegates |
| 1984 | Jesse Jackson | Democrat | 3.3M votes, 384 delegates |
| 1988 | Jesse Jackson | Democrat | 7M votes, 1,218 delegates |
| 1988 | Lenora Fulani | New Alliance | 225,000 votes, all 50 states |
| 2008 | Barack Obama | Democrat | 69.5M votes — won |
The Thread
What connects Chisholm to Obama is not a straight line — it is a contested, interrupted, sometimes betrayed path. Chisholm was undermined by Black male leaders who didn't believe in her. Jackson was sabotaged by a Democratic establishment that feared his coalition. Fulani was erased by a media that couldn't process a Black woman running outside the two-party system.
Obama's election was the culmination of all of it — the organizing, the lawsuits, the delegate fights, the death threats, the speeches that moved millions — and also the beginning of a new set of questions:
What does a Black president owe to Black America? What does Black America owe to itself?
Those questions remain open.
