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Wed, 06.04.2008

The First Black Man Wins an American Presidential Nomination

Obama in Texas

On this date in 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois won the Democratic presidential nomination.

This historic step made him the nation's first Black presidential candidate. Obama defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton and set up a five-month campaign with Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a race between a 46-year-old opponent of the Iraq War and a 71-year-old former Vietnam prisoner of war and staunch supporter of that U.S. military mission.

Obama, a first-term senator virtually unknown on the national stage four years prior, defeated Clinton, the former first lady, in a 17-month marathon for the Democratic nomination. The young Illinois senator's success amounted to a victory of hope over experience, earned across an enervating 56 primaries and caucuses that tested the political skills and human endurance of all involved.

To Become a Political Scientist

New Poem Each Day

Poetry Corner

My old man’s a white old man And my old mother’s black. If ever I cursed my white old man I take my curses back. If ever I cursed my black old mother And... CROSS by Langston Hughes.
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