CAIRO — Representative Sanford D. Bishop is co-chairman of the Democratic White House candidate Barak Obama campaign in Georgia. His wife, Vivian Creighton Bishop, a city official in Columbus at the same state, favors rival Hillary Clinton.

If any election can prove that American blacks are not a monolithic voting bloc, it is this one, The New York Times reported Friday, January 18.

"Hillary is not thought well of," Bishop said.

His wife delayed drawing attention to her endorsement of Clinton to avoid angering her constituents.

Now she says she was more concerned about whites who disliked Clinton than about blacks who might be disappointed that she had not supported a black candidate.

Like the Bishop family, the race has pitted Afro-American longtime prominent allies in the American civil rights movement against one another.

Rev. Joseph E. Lowery has supported Obama, for instance, while Representative John Lewis and Andrew Young staunchly defended Clinton.

"Hillary Clinton, first of all, has Bill behind her," Young said. "And Bill is every bit as black as Barack."

Across the South, a fierce competition is afoot for black voters, who are expected to constitute 20 percent to 50 percent of voters in the South Carolina Democratic primary on January 26 and in the four Southern states with primaries on February 5: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee.

Pollsters say black voters would make up half of the Democratic primary voters, up from the usual 40 percent.

Energy Vs. Tradition

The competition between Obama and Clinton for black voters can be summed up as a battle between Obama’s grass-roots and generational energy and Clinton's traditional, diehard elderly kingmakers.

"This is going to be another one of these watershed events in the black community," said Hank Sanders, a state senator and former president of the Alabama New South Coalition, a group that endorses Obama.

In many counties, registration has spiked since Obama won the Iowa caucuses earlier this month, and election officials say interest is at its highest point in several election cycles.

The popular The People’s Voice African-American weekly has not endorsed a candidate for the Democratic presidential primary on February 5.

"I’m trying to get ready to endorse him (Obama), but my board is so split," Charlotte A. Clark-Frieson, the weekly's publisher, told the Times.

Chatter about the two candidates — both of whom have substantial claims to African-American support — is constant on black radio shows and e-mail lists and at barbershops, while officials and bishops are expected to come forward with last-minute endorsements.

Obama has proved to be a rival to be reckoned with after winning the Iowa nominating contest, which emboldened him to compete Clinton in her strongholds.

On Thursday, January 17, Obama opened a campaign office in the Clinton black stronghold of Memphis, Tennessee, though Clinton did win the endorsement of longtime mayor Willie W. Herenton, who is black.

"The only thing I can assume is that they figure that they can come into Memphis at the last minute and sweep up the black vote," said D’Army Bailey, a state circuit court judge and black Democrat who supported Bill Clinton.

"The field’s wide open for Obama to come in."

A younger generation appears to be embracing Obama's energetic talk.

In Atlanta, Mark Johnson said he was the first to put a political sign up in his predominantly black neighborhood. It was a Clinton sign.

"My son said, ‘Dad, what if they throw rocks at the window?’" said Johnson.

Source: Split Black Families Jan 19, 2008