The future direction of Black politics will reach a crossroads in November, with a chance to consider two models of representation, both of which offer advantages and drawbacks for the Black community. The defining question is whether the campaign of Kamala Harris or Maryland Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks is the best path to a durable governing influence in the post-Obama era.
The Harris campaign is based on the old strategy of the “Obama model,” which actually dates back to the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 “Rainbow Coalition” presidential campaign. Jackson, based in Chicago, devised a populist style of multiracial electoral politics that placed great faith in the office of the presidency to address the needs of the Black community and country.
Obama tweaked the Jackson strategy to leverage his strong points in his Senate and presidential campaigns, using to his advantage the favorable distinctions of his unique background. Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and white American mother, shaped his story to appeal to a broad electorate in Illinois. He was a Black candidate without the cultural baggage of slavery and Jim Crow, which provided a sense of ease to a diverse array of donors and voters while still allowing him to identify with the Black experience.
Yet, because Obama’s blend of cultural assets was unique, his political strategy seemed unlikely to be replicated. As such, it prompted discussions over new directions in Black politics after his presidency ended. To what extent should ambitious Black politicians try to be the next Obama? Does an undue attention to the presidency come at the expense of neglected participation in county and state government?
In July, the Democrats, in a panic over President Biden’s sagging poll numbers, acted to rekindle the Obama strategy with the unilateral selection of Kamala Harris. However, this iteration of the Obama model is in some ways even more distant from the traditional Black community. Obama, after all, earned credibility among the Chicago folk by working as a community organizer, through his marriage and family with Michelle Robinson, and by winning many contested primary elections.
Harris, by contrast, leapfrogged the vetting process through the anointing of Democratic powerbrokers to the office of vice presidency and potentially the presidency. Now party strategists expect Black voters to embrace her much as they did Obama.
To date, the expectations appear to be working; yet, as Karl Marx famously noted, when history repeats itself, it does so first as tragedy and second as farce. Harris, by inheriting the Biden campaign machinery in a pinch, is now tied to the legacy of his administration and the Democratic Congress.
Some of that agenda may present controversy over future services to the Black community. One example is the oft-touted bipartisan Senate border security bill. The bill appears to trade control of border surges in return for federal resources for untold numbers of migrants currently in the country. But if Harris fails to acknowledge a need for provisions in the bill to safeguard local communities, it could undercut the delivery of services like homeless shelters to local residents. Moreover, the bill would provide migrants with work authorizations to compete against the American working poor just as the economy is slowing down.
By contrast, the Senate campaign of Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland seeks to leverage a mobilized statewide Black Democratic voting bloc. Under the “Maryland model,” the political class relies on base election turnout and favorable preconditions, such as the state’s 30 percent Black population. It aims to build on the legacy of Maryland’s Black community to discover the best ways to attain influence in state governance.
The Black community has developed a deep bench of political talent in “the Free State” since the days of the Civil War. With emancipation, there were lively debates over future directions by Maryland abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Henry Highland Garnett. Douglass, for instance, advocated for integration and went so far as to propose the amalgamation of ex-slaves into the white mainstream. Garnett called for a group strategy that included the formation of towns and even emigration to Liberia for the wellbeing of the freedmen.
Later generations produced leaders in a continuum of political debate and maturation. Elijah Cummings, the former Baltimore congressman, was most prominent in recent years. The quest for Black statewide influence came to fruition in 2022 with the historic election of Wes Moore as governor and Anthony Brown as attorney general, both the first Black person to hold the office in the state’s 246-year history.
Alsobrooks seeks to extend the momentum into the U.S. Senate. She is a 53-year-old single mother and life-long resident of Prince George’s County, where she serves as the county executive of a suburban base of power for Black middle-class professionals. She is campaigning on policies to grow the economy, reduce crime and nurture Black family development. According to recent polls, she holds a handy lead over Larry Hogan, the popular former two-term Republican governor.
If Alsobrooks is successful, Maryland would be the only state where Black community representatives hold the top three offices. Of course, celebrity firsts are much less important than nurturing a sustainable degree of influence in the state governance. In this regard, leadership today may find guidance in the vision of the organizers of early utopian towns like Mound Bayou, Mississippi. They openly recruited families to join them in a project to build a model Black polity in the late 19th century.
Gov. Moore touched on the notion of recruitment when he waded into Florida’s war on “woke culture.” In criticizing the state’s constraints on the teaching of Black history, Moore appeared to welcome teachers and parents estranged by the policy. His office and marketing organizations may want to consider recruiting middle-class families, skilled workers, moneyed retirees and professionals that can work remotely from states with racially volatile policies like Florida and Texas — which would grow Maryland’s Black voting base.
Black politics stands at a crossroads in November. While most attention is on the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, it may be the Maryland Senate campaign of Angela Alsobrooks that points to the future direction for Black self-governance.
Roger House is professor emeritus of American Studies at Emerson College and the author of “Blue Smoke: The Recorded Journey of Big Bill Broonzy” and “South End Shout: Boston’s Forgotten Music Scene in the Jazz Age.” His forthcoming book is “Five Hundred Years of Black Self Governance.”