Welcome to the Movement
I’ve been trying to get Black folks to pay attention to the AIDS epidemic in our community for over 20 years. But in the heat of the presidential primaries, I learned everything I need to know about mobilizing Black folk, and I owe it all to Barack Obama.
In October 2007, polls showed that Black voters backed Hillary Clinton over Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination by a whopping margin: 57 to 33 percent. It remained unclear who would win the nomination at this report’s writing, but what was clear was that Obama had regenerated his own campaign by revving up Black America. In the Nevada caucuses and the South Carolina primary, exit polls showed more than 80 percent of Black voters backed him. So what changed?
In the words of Bill Schneider, CNN’s senior political analyst, “What appears to have changed is Obama’s electability.” Black people were reluctant to support Sen. Obama because they didn’t think a Black man could be elected president and they didn’t want to be disappointed. “Now they believe,” said
Schneider.