www.independentvoting.org/news/SuperTuesdayRoundUp.html -
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Published on: 2/12/2008
Last Visited: 10/9/2008
I was interviewed for it as was CUIP activist Dr. Omar Ali.
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"The abolitionists were the first generation to conceptualize what it meant to be an American in the modern sense of the word; that to be an American meant to be rich, poor, black, white, male, female," said Omar H. Ali, assistant professor of history at Towson University, near Baltimore."They had a new vision of the founding documents, to extend the notion of all men being created equal to all people being created equal.Those are really the founding fathers and mothers of our country."
This impulse toward democracy, toward fairness for all , has animated many movements in American history -- the Populists, whose presidential candidate won a million votes in 1892; the Progressives, who advocated an activist government to remedy social ills, in the early 1900s; and certainly the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.
Ali, author of the forthcoming "In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third-Party Movements in the United States" (Ohio University Press, 2008), believes that Obama has tapped into the same rich vein that produced the Populists, the Progressives and the civil rights movement.
"The thing that is most captivating about Obama is that he's speaking in nonpartisan terms," he said."He's not speaking solely as a Democrat.