Struggle for the African-American vote

By Kevin Connolly
BBC News, South Carolina

Public smiles, but in private, there is a simmering mutual dislike

Elijah Nesbitt is old enough to remember the horrors of the past, but he is starting to believe that he has lived long enough to see hope in the future.

Elijah is a black South Carolinian who thinks deeply about his politics - exactly the kind of voter, in fact, who is at the centre of this week's struggle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the state's African-American vote.

He can recall his grandfather taking him down to a polling station as a young child on the day in 1960 when the old man voted for the smiling young Democratic contender, John F Kennedy.

A white mob was lying in wait outside: the racist supremacists of the Old South were losing their battle to prevent black people from registering to vote, by using a mixture of intimidation and bureaucratic obstructionism.

Trying to frighten an elderly man and his young grandchildren was a desperate last resort.

Struggle for rights

Elijah told me what happened: "I remember having to hide under the floorboards of my grand-daddy's car with blankets over us, because we were afraid that people was coming around and shaking the car, trying to break into the car and saying racial slurs at you."

Obama with singer Usher Raymond and actress Kerry Washington

But Mr Nesbitt senior somehow managed to vote. John F Kennedy, that doomed hope for the future was elected, and the early 60s gradually saw civil rights legislation transform the legal rights of America's black population.

It didn't succeed in transforming their economic horizons, but that is a matter for another day.

The legacy of the bitterness of that struggle for rights is to be found in the sensitivity that surrounds any issue of race in modern American politics.

Consider the reaction when Mrs Clinton made this observation about the work of Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader who was assassinated 40 years ago this year.

She said: "He worked with President Johnson to get the civil rights laws passed because the dream couldn't be realised until finally it was legally permissible."

Allegations

You could read that as something of a self-serving statement of the obvious: a reminder of the usefulness of having a long-time Washington insider with their hands on the levers of power.

A row erupted recently over Mrs Clintons comments about civil rights

But many African-Americans heard the remark differently. Some interpreted it as showing a straightforward lack of respect for Dr King. Many more saw it as a well-thought out tactic; an attempt to lure Mr Obama onto the poisonous ground of racial politics, and to frustrate his efforts to run as a candidate offering change to black and white voters alike. A post-identity politician, in the jargon of the moment.

The row was only one factor in the steady poisoning of relations between the Obama and Clinton camps, which culminated in the ill-humoured opening act of the latest Democratic debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Each raked up allegations about the other's past, and they did it in a way that made clear that a simmering mutual dislike is no longer simply simmering.

So when, during the second half of the debate, that racial issue was raised directly, you could sense the tension in the room.

Difficult race issue

One of the moderators asked Mr Obama what he thought of the often-quoted remark that, because of his affinity for African-American issues, it could be argued that Bill Clinton was America's first black president.

Bill Clinton campaigns for his wife in South Carolina

Mr Obama chose to deal with the issue deftly.

He paused and said thoughtfully: "I would have to investigate more Bill's dancing abilities, you know, and some of this other stuff before I accurately judge whether he was in fact a brother."

It was a brilliantly-judged remark (Mr Obama has good comic timing) and one that no white politician would have dared to make.

The truth is that the race issue is a difficult one to judge for both the Democratic front-runners. Mr Obama can assume he will probably get a majority of the African-American Democrat vote - but he wants to be seen as a candidate for all Democrats. There's that post-identity thing again.

Hillary has the same problem. She needs the votes of women, but can't win with women's votes alone. So both need to send out the kind of signals that reinforce their core vote, without alienating other potential supporters. And, of course, neither can be sure how African-American women in South Carolina will vote at the weekend. In a tight race, they could well decide who wins this crucial "first in the South state".

Change

When I asked a young African-American woman outside the conference venue in Myrtle Beach which possibility excited her more between the prospect of the first black president, and the first woman in the White House she said: "For real change, it has to be a black woman running."

Campaign 2008 already promises so much change that to her, at least, greater change in the future already seems inevitable. A third or so of South Carolina's population of around four million is African-American. Most are Democrats, so their votes will be crucial at the weekend.

I will leave the last word to Elijah Nesbitt, who has lived through such extraordinary change in his lifetime - and who, by the way, fought for his country on two combat tours of Vietnam.

He told me directly he didn't know who would win the Democrat nomination, or the presidency, but he said this election could be as important as the one that Jack Kennedy won all those years ago, because the promise of change is once again in the air.

As he put it: "If we elect a woman president or a minority, then every minority can see hope that it's not so much to share jobs but share power and that is what this election is about, it's about the change in power."