Trapped by Tradition

By Lonnie Bunch

Only a few dreamers could have imagined that within the first decade of the 21st century, an African American candidate could galvanize the U.S. electorate, garner record-setting financial support and overcome this country’s legacy of racial discrimination. Fewer still could imagine that Barack Obama would be that candidate.

In 2003, I was president of the Chicago Historical Society, the city’s oldest cultural institution. That year marked the 20th anniversary of the contested and racially charged election of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor. It was an event that the museum celebrated through a major exhibition, a series of evening galas and activities that engaged the city.
As the anticipation and visibility of the exhibition opening grew, it caught the attention of a young Illinois state senator who was seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate. Recognizing that the opening would draw an audience he needed to engage and that there would be significant media attention, State Sen. Obama asked if he could attend the gala. It is hard to imagine that a little more than five years ago, a museum event was a tool used by Obama to increase his visibility. Now as president he may be the most visible person on the planet.
Looking at the Obama election through the lens of history helps us realize that although his rise was swift, it benefited from the long fight for racial justice in America. Obama’s success is built on a history of struggle, incremental change, resiliency and hope, and on a creativity and a spirituality that allowed African Americans to find a way when there was no way.

The election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States has the potential to help free us from the traditions and paradigms that James Baldwin describes in his 1963 novel The Fire Next Time. Baldwin argues, “Americans are still trapped by traditions, still bound by traditions, history, and memories which they do not thoroughly understand, and until they understand, they cannot escape.” To Baldwin the essence is simple: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped within people.” The election of the junior senator from Illinois calls into question some of the racially based assumptions and traditions that have shaped this country, but more time is needed to assess just how deep and how permanent is this change.

President Obama is standing on many shoulders. He has acknowledged the role that his family has played in his success. But his path was also paved by the enslaved woman who breathed hope into her children while refusing to let the field strip her of humanity. He was able to move swiftly because of the thousands who died trying to vote or who were brutalized but not broken by the violence that undergirded the era of Jim Crow segregation. His trek was made possibly by another president, Abraham Lincoln, who used the words “forever free” in the Emancipation Proclamation, and by the actions and admonitions of Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ida B. Wells and Barbara Jordan, who demanded that America simply live up to the ideals drafted by the Founding Fathers. The power of hope and the belief in the urgency of change were central tenets of Obama’s candidacy and appeal. Yet these ideas that seem so contemporary have roots deeply intertwined and nurtured by the historical experiences of African Americans.

As a historian of black America, it is impossible not to find the implications, the symbolism and the “audacity” of this moment intriguing and challenging. After all, this election has the potential to be transformative, given the way it captured the attention of young voters, bridged some of the racial chasms that divide America and attempted to restore an optimistic view of the promise of America. But will it?
One of the most fascinating aspects of this election is the way Barack Obama’s candidacy was able to help black America reclaim its American-ness. For generations, black Americans have felt the need to prove that they were worthy of citizenship, worthy of owning a portion of the American dream. That is why a regimental flag carried by black Civil War soldiers read: “We fight to prove our worth.” Or why athletic accomplishments, pioneering achievements and business successes were always trumpeted as a blow against the walls of discrimination. By not running on race but not running away from race, Obama did not try to prove his worthiness. He just claimed his American-ness. This is a wonderful model that black America can emulate.

Clearly one of the most intriguing aspects of this election was whether the candidacy of Sen. Obama means that we have entered a different era of race relations. Early in the campaign, some claimed that Obama was the first “post-racial” presidential candidate. Yet the closeness of this election—despite the weight of the economic crisis and the war in Iraq that effectively doomed the party of the incumbent president—suggests that race is still a significant factor in the minds of some of the electorate.
But the question is whether race matters less than at any other time in our history. Recently I visited the sites associated with Nat Turner’s slave revolt in 1831 in rural Southampton County, Virginia. I was struck by conversations with white farmers, many identifying themselves as “very conservative,” who nevertheless claimed that “despite color” they would support Obama. Who could not be moved by the diverse millions who passionately supported Obama? But it is difficult to assess whether this is a new day that will have long coattails and will truly change America, or whether this is another example of an exceptional African American embraced and celebrated as a symbol of change, but in reality that change proves fleeting or superficial.
This is a great deal of baggage to attach to a president just a few months removed from a very difficult campaign. So it seems that one of the greatest challenges that President Obama faces is the need to manage expectations. For many Americans, his election means that we can finally put much of our difficult racial past in the past. Electing someone who defines himself as African American might indicate that we have overcome and no longer will we need to wrestle with our darker demons. Others might view the election of Obama as a sign that life within the African American community will quickly change for the better. Not even a gifted politician like Barack Obama can single-handedly end the violence that scars many black neighborhoods or quickly find the answers for societal ills that have been fashioned by decades of poverty and neglect.

In 1922, W.E.B. Du Bois expressed his frustration with the political system when he wrote, “May God write us down as asses if ever again we are found putting our trust in either the Republican or Democratic parties.” Well, millions have placed their trust in Barack Obama. How he manages and nurtures that trust will be key during his administration.

I want to believe that this election signals a new America that is more comfortable with its diversity. An America that is willing to confront its troubling racial history. Yet I am a part of an America—an African American baby boomer—that finds this election both inspirational and challenging. I remember sitting in my elementary school classroom—the only African American in the school—looking up at the pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln that graced the wall above the blackboard. And when the teacher told us once again that anyone could be president of the United States, I looked at those portraits and I knew that the teacher had lied. It was a lie that stayed with me, that scarred me—until Nov. 4. The election of Barack Obama means that many Americans now face a different truth. This election will force many to evaluate just how central race will remain as a line of demarcation in our lives and in our America. And that is good.
Ultimately the election of Barack Obama is important because it signals an era of possibility, an era where millions believe that America—that we, as Americans—can be made better. The next few years will tell us a great deal about what is really possible. But for now, save your bumper stickers, your lawn signs, your badly askew photographs taken at campaign rallies and the receipt you received when you voted. This is the stuff of history. These are the proof that we participated in one of the most significant presidential elections in the United States of America.

Lonnie Bunch is founding director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture. A version of this piece appeared in the Newark Star-Ledger.