Obama Seeks Votes Amid Fervor

Senator Draws Enthusiasm of Black Students but Few Volunteers

Students at Howard University pressed together on the curb yesterday, waving at Sen. Barack Obama as his black SUV raced up the block.

In a fiery speech focused on racial inequities in the criminal justice system, Obama (D-Ill.) called them the "Joshua generation" that would lead the nation into a promised land. His 30-minute speech was interrupted by applause a dozen times, a show of the embrace he has received from young African Americans, particularly on college campuses, where his image is shaped as much by the mainstream media as by hip-hop artists and magazines.

Vibe dubbed him "B-Rock" in its cover article this month; popular rappers Common and Talib Kweli have dropped his name in their lyrics; and R&B singer Usher Raymond introduced him at a recent fundraiser, building an excitement factor with young voters.

"As a black man, he has a perspective that has long been unheard and disregarded," said Howard student Antonio Kizzie, 20, who was waiting on the curb for a last glimpse of the candidate.

The campaign's challenge will be converting the excitement of Kizzie and other students into votes. Candidates who have charmed young voters in the past have largely failed when it came to mobilizing them. Interviews with two dozen students as they went back to school at three black colleges found support for Obama, but with summer breaks having ended only recently, the campaign's fledgling student organizations do not match the enthusiasm.

About 18 students showed up for the first meeting of Students for Barack Obama at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta. The group's volunteer coordinator Kevin Heard, 19, was disappointed with the showing.

"We have to get more people here," he said. He joined the group, Heard said, because it offers an opportunity "to help a black man who is showing positive images of African American men. By helping someone as positive as he is, I'll show America that I am positive, too."

He and others in the group will head to South Carolina this weekend to knock on doors for the candidate.

More representative of the overall level of student activism is Troy Haynes, 21. A Clark Atlanta student who recently moved from New York, he has never cast a vote and is barely paying attention to the presidential race. He did sign onto a Students for Barack Obama group on Facebook, because he thinks that "Obama should show the whole world that a black man can run the United States."

Has Haynes registered to vote? "Nah, not yet."

Obama tried yesterday to stir the audience of young blacks to action during the Howard convocation speech, which he also used to promote a criminal justice plan.

"Thurgood Marshall did not argue [ Brown v. Board of Education] so that we would accept a country where too many African American men end up in prison because we'd rather spend more to jail a 25-year-old than to educate a 5-year-old," he said. "As you go back to your classrooms and dorm rooms . . . I ask you to remember how far we've come, but I urge you to think hard about where we need to go."