Topic: Blog Tours
Today we finish up our visit with Earl Hutchinson and his book, The Ethnic Presidency. There Has been a lot posted this week to think about and consider. I'm sure Mr. Hutchinson would love to hear your thoughts on his book.
Democrats and the Black Vote
There was irony and even a little history making in the events that unfolded during the weekend festival in Selma, Alabama the first week of March 2007. Forty years earlier the shocking and brutal attack by wildly swinging baton -welding Alabama state
troopers on hundreds of black and white civil rights marchers sent shock waves through the nation. It spurred an angry Lyndon Johnson to go on national TV and virtually order Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. Now forty years later, there were thousands of black elected officials in the South and the nation. In Alabama blacks made up a significant number of state legislators, and held hundreds of local and state officers.
There was also Obama. He was the first African-American presidential candidate who appeared to have a real shot at the Democratic presidential nomination. He was in Selma that weekend at the invitation of black Alabama Congressman Arthur Davis. Davis asked him to deliver the keynote address at the historic and legendary Brown Chapel that Sunday. The famed chapel was the launch point for the civil rights marchers.
Obama, though, wasn't the only mainline Democratic presidential contender in Selma that weekend for the commemoration. Hillary was there too. She had accepted an invitation to speak at the First Baptist Church. The dueling commemorative civil rights speeches by Obama and Clinton were more than just their tribute to a profound event that marked a racial turning point in American politics. The top contenders were dueling to establish their civil rights credentials. The big prize was the black vote. Their Selma speeches sent an electric signal that they wanted and needed the black vote to win in 2008 and they would do everything within their power to get it.
For much more information about Earl Ofari Hutchinson and The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Affects the Race to the White House, visit his blog blitz homepage - http://inspiredauthor.com/promotion/Ethnic+Presidency+Blitz. To order your copy of the Ethnic Presidency, visit www.ethnicpresidency.com or
www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Presidency-Decides-White-House/dp/1881032256
