January 04, 2008 @ 11:45 am

Barack Obama Takes Iowa Caucuses; Senator Could Become America's First Black President

Julianne Shepherd

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The Senator from Illinois sweeps Iowa, upsets Hillary Clinton's projected win.

"In the face of impossible odds, people can change [this country]." Flanked by his wife and two daughters, Barack Obama, presidential hopeful and one-time VIBE cover subject began his victory speech with a palpable hope that roused a crowd at his Iowa headquarters, after the Senator from Illinois won last night's Iowa caucuses in a sweeping upset.

Obama beat out John Edwards and presumed frontrunner Hillary Clinton with 38% of the vote, to Edwards' 30% and Clinton's 29%. The Democrats turned out record numbers at the turnstiles - close to 240,000 residents, nearly double the amount in 2004 - compared to the Republican's 114,000 voters.

Oh, his speech. The speech had MSNBC pundits comparing his command and charisma to that of Bobby Kennedy. It was history in the making - because the Senator is the first African American presidential candidate to win the first caucus of a primary election. Because record numbers of young people and women cast their vote for him. Because he won in a state that is 98% white. Because he represents a dismissal of the status-quo political machine that has ruled Washington for many years. Witness:

"Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire… what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation… what lead young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave firehoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause. Hope is what led me here today," said the Senator, amid cheers.   

Obama is not the first black candidate to run for president - there was the groundbreaking career of the resolute Shirley Chisolm, who in 1972 became both the first woman and the first African American to run for president. (She was also the first black woman elected to Congress, in 1968.) And in 1984, the Reverend Jesse Jackson ran on the Democratic ticket, where he won primaries in South Carolina, Louisiana and Virginia - inspiring him to run again in 1988, where he won 11 primaries and was second to the eventual Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis.  

The next caucuses will be held in New Hampshire on January 8. Many papers are reporting Hillary Clinton leads the Democratic polls in that state, but those polls were taken last week, before Obama's Iowa win, and his victory is expected to be a large factor in determining who wins New Hampshire. In the following primary, held in South Carolina, Obama is projected to win.

­Click here to read VIBE's September 2007 cover story on Barack Obama by Jeff Chang. Click here to read the Q&A version of VIBE's interview with Barack Obama, from our September 2007 issue. Click here to listen to a podcast with renowned hip hop journalist Jeff Chang, about interviewing Senator Obama for VIBE. Click here to read VIBE's Q&A with Al Sharpton about Senator Obama.

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