Meet Barack Obama - your 'first ever' black Democratic Senator

[russian33]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040727/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_convention_rdp_25

"...Democrats also are looking to their keynote speaker, Barack Obama, their Illinois Senate candidate who would be the first black Democrat ever to serve in the Senate, to energize the party's base.

"What I'd like to do is focus on making sure that I give voice to the stories that I'm hearing of people across Illinois who are struggling with health care bills that are rising, trying to save for college and retirement at the same time," Obama said in an interview Tuesday on CNN's "American Morning."

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So how come I know more than AP writers? Because if my mind serves me correctly, Senator Mosely-Braun was a Democrat.

[Catherine Vincent]

1. Wasn't CMB a senator from Illinois?

[noiretextatique]

2. you are correct

and there was brooks on the republican side...and two others during reconstruction.

[phillybri]

3. Are these reporters friggin brain dead???

:wtf:

[Cobalt Violet]

4. She was!

:wtf:

[Connie_Corleone]

5. What Idiots!!

:grr:

[Sweet Freedom]

6. Perhaps

they all look alike to Darlene Superville :eyes:

[Mandate My Ass]

7. THK, an *aging* liberal warrior??????

how friggin insulting. :puke:

[slappypan]

9. Aren't we all aging?

At least, everyone I know is.

[genius]

8. CMB - from Illinois

AP is brain-dead.

[dave29]

10. Journalists suck

Apparantly we DO have to do the work for them.

[Maine-i-acs]

11. Obama's mixed-race right?

Not that it maters BUT - c'mon, it's time for the media to stop tagging people with convenient ethnic bylines.

Obama's going to be a great Senator in his own right independent of race.

[russian33]

13. yeah, half...

I think his father was Kenyan, and his mother was white

[City Lights]

12. Anybody got a an email addy for the AP?

Someone needs to set them straight.

[goclark]

14. Just heard AA say that he will be the 1st male Demo. Sen.

that is African American.


Senator Edward Brooke was African American but he was a Republican.

http://www.biography.com/cgi-bin/biomain.cgi

[Reverend_Smitty]

15. I think journalists

if you want to call them that are not so much stupid as they are lazy. They don't want to go out of their way to get their facts straight, and they just assume that the public will believe them. Because they think that the majority of the public is either stupid or lazy as well. Randi Rhodes always talks about laziness in the media, what we as informed Americans should do is call them on their carelessness and send them a message that someone is watching them.

[SoCalDem]

16. Apparently there have been FOUR

Hiram Revels



Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first African American senator in 1870. Born in North Carolina in 1827, Revels attended Knox College in Illinois and later served as minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland. He raised two black regiments during the Civil War and fought at the battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi. The Mississippi state legislature sent him to the U.S. Senate during Reconstruction where he became an outspoken opponent of racial segregation. Although Revels served in the Senate for just a year, he broke new ground for African Americans in Congress. (Photo: Library of Congress)

Blanche K. Bruce



Born into slavery in 1841, Blanche K. Bruce spent his childhood years in Virginia where he received his earliest education from the tutor hired to teach his master's son. At the dawn of the Civil War, Bruce escaped slavery and tried to enlist in the Union Army. Rejected, the 20-year-old Bruce traveled north to begin a distinguished career in education and politics. Elected to the Senate in 1874 by the Mississippi state legislature, he served from 1875 to 1881. In 2002, the Senate commissioned a new portrait of Bruce, now on display in the U.S. Capitol. (Photo: Library of Congress)


Edward Brooke



The first African American elected to the Senate by popular vote, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts served two full terms, from 1967 to 1979. Born in Washington, D.C. in 1919, Brooke graduated from Howard University before serving in the United States Army during World War II. After the war, he received a law degree from Boston University. During his Senate career he championed the causes of low-income housing and an increased minimum wage, and promoted commuter rail and mass transit systems. He also worked tirelessly to promote racial equality in the South. (Photo: Senate Historical Office)


Carol Moseley-Braun



Some called 1992 the "Year of the Woman." More women than ever before were elected to political office in November of that year, and five of them came to the U.S. Senate. Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois not only joined that class on January 3, 1993, but also became the first African American woman ever to serve as U.S. Senator. During her Senate career, Moseley-Braun sponsored progressive education bills and campaigned for gun control. Moseley-Braun left the Senate in January of 1999, and soon after became the U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand, a position she held until 2001. (Photo: Senate Historical Office)