Barack Obama has clearly benefited from the changes in attitudes brought about as a result of the lengthy civil rights struggle undertaken by generations of African Americans. The entire thrust of the Civil Rights movement—to come to a point where all Americans could be afforded equal opportunities rather than to continue a system in which opportunity was based on race—clearly made the public life of Barack Obama possible. As a biracial child of a white mother and an African father, without the gains of the Civil Rights movement, he would likely never have been able to attain a college education, a law degree, or his Senate seat; as a “man of color,” it would have been unthinkable for him to run for the Presidency under the old system of racial oppression.
Perhaps the piece of Civil Rights legislation from the mid-20th century that most directly allowed for Obama’s rise to the Presidency was the 1965 Voting Rights Act, considered by most historians to be the most effective piece of civil rights legislation of the era. By granting the franchise to all eligible Americans without regard to either race or national origin (both of which had prevented many minority individuals from voting, often under the guise of literacy tests or poll taxes), the Act empowered all Americans to take part in the democratic process, free from fears of physical harm, harassment, or other retribution.
In doing so, African Americans could not only cast their votes for the candidates and the issues of their choice, they could extend that involvement in the political process beyond just voting for others but also become active participants as candidates and activists themselves.
Obama himself has expressed his admiration and high regard for John Lewis, the U.S. Congressman from Georgia and a veteran of the Civil Rights movement himself. Lewis was one of the “Big Six” civil rights leader of his generation and was instrumental in voter registration drives and in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964.
