The racial categories we have with us today are very interesting, and
are a hold over from hundreds of years of history dealing with the
mixing of races.  I say this because the article below states that Sen.
Obama is "an underdog black politician."  And yet, as we know, his
mother is white.  I have not read enough to know about Obama, but does
he personally identify himself as black?  Is mixed race more accurate?


-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jon Kukla
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 11:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VA-HIST] Louisa Virginia's John Mercer Langston

From HNN : The 'Obama Before Obama'
Source: WaPo (6-7-08)

LOUISA, Va. -- Planted in the lawn at the courthouse on West Main Street
here is a gray historical marker that draws little attention. It proudly
proclaims that the country's first black elected official was native son
John Mercer Langston, born in this central Virginia county, the son of a
wealthy white planter and an emancipated slave of Indian and black
ancestry.

History seems to whisper more often than it shouts. Langston was one of
the most extraordinary men of the 19th century, and yet his achievements
-- prominent abolitionist, first black congressman from Virginia,
founder of what would become the Howard University law school -- have
largely been forgotten. In the arc of American advancement toward black
political empowerment, Langston represents the symbolic beginning.
Elected township clerk of Brownhelm, Ohio, on April 2, 1855, he became,
by many accounts, the first "Negro" elevated to public office by popular
vote.

It took 153 years to get from John Mercer Langston to Barack Hussein
Obama, a journey that endured the dashed hopes of Reconstruction and the
oppression of Jim Crow to arrive at a moment that has stunned even those
optimistic about America's racial progress. An underdog black politician
has secured a major party's presidential nomination in a country where
less than 4 percent of its elected officials are African Americans?

Posted on HNN - History News Network, Monday, June 9, 2008

--
Jon Kukla
www.JonKukla.com

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