The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and the Rise and Decline of Black Politics PDF
Preview The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and the Rise and Decline of Black Politics
THE PRICE OF THE TICKET TRANSGRESSING BOUNDARIES Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities Cathy Cohen and Fredrick C. Harris, Series Editors The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women’s Struggles Against Urban Inequality Rhonda Y. Williams Keepin’ It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White Prudence L. Carter Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black Communities, and the Call for a Deep Democracy J. Phillip Thompson III Party/Politics: Horizons in Black Political Thought Michael Hanchard In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post–Civil Rights Era Richard Iton Race and the Politics of Solidarity Juliet Hooker I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde Rudolph P. Byrd, Johnnetta Betsch Cole, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Editors Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics Cathy J. Cohen Democracy’s Reconstruction: Thinking Politically with W. E. B. Dubois Lawrie Balfour The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and the Rise and Decline of Black Politics Fredrick C. Harris The Price of the Ticket Barack Obama and the Rise and Decline of Black Politics Fredrick C. Harris 1 3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With of(cid:1) ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2012 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harris, Fredrick C. The price of the ticket : Barack Obama and the rise and decline of Black politics / Fredrick C. Harris. p. cm. — (Transgressing boundaries : studies in Black politics and Black communities) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-973967-7 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. African Americans—Politics and government—20th century. 2. African Americans—Politics and government—21st century. 3. African American political activists—History—20th century. 4. African American politicians—History—20th century. 5. Obama, Barack—Relations with African Americans. 6. United States—Politics and government—1945–1989. 7. United States—Politics and government—1989– I. Title. E185.615.H288 2012 323.1196′073—dc23 2012001114 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Nigel Yes: we have lived through avalanches of tokens and concessions but white power remains white. And what it appears to surrender with one hand it obsessively clutches in the other. —James Baldwin Contents Preface i x Acknowledgments x vii 1 C lash of Ideas 3 2 C hicago: The Political Capital of Black America 3 5 3 E ntering the Land of Milk and Honey 7 0 4 R espectability as Public Philosophy 1 00 5 W ink, Nod, Vote 1 37 6 T he Price of the Ticket 1 70 Notes 1 93 Index 2 05 This page intentionally left blank Preface IN 1971, A BRITISH journalist noted during a televised interview with Muhammad Ali that the boxer was the second most promi- nent American after President Richard Nixon. The journalist fol- lowed the pronouncement by asking the world’s heavyweight champion whether he would like to be president. Ali answered with an emphatic “no.” “Too dangerous,” the boxer quipped. Ali’s concern about being the president of the United States was not only because of the potential violence that might be directed against him for being a black man holding the most powerful posi- tion in the world. His resistance also was due to the extraordinary challenges that would likely confront him as the nation’s (cid:1) rst black president. * “Like in other words,” Ali informed the journalist, there’s “a ship, people are dancing on the ship, a lot of money is on the ship, a lot of food is on the ship, and I cannot integrate on the ship, I can’t have equality on the ship . . . I’m just in the galley working, and I could never get up and see the captain of the ship.” Ali explained while rubbing his forehead, “Now all of the sudden the man tells me ‘Say, come on down, Ali, out of the galley. Hi, I want * “Muhammad Ali on the First Black President,” interview with Michael Parkinson, 1971. Available on YouTube.
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