The 'Obama Before Obama'

"Wow," Lourenco said. "I'm really embarrassed I didn't know about him." Barack Obama she knows about. While her fellow chef-owner, Debbie Wollett, has been a diehard Hillary Clinton backer, Lourenco has been on an emotional ride with Obama since the campaign began. It's not rational, she admits, not based on a careful study of his policies or any serious reading at all. She has been too busy for that -- perfecting her specialty, Valencian paella, and trying to make the restaurant successful. So for her, it comes down to this: "He just speaks to me in a way that other politicians haven't."

The line from Langston to Obama is something Marvin Trice latched onto immediately.

Six years ago, Trice, a painter, was commissioned to do a black-and-white acrylic of Langston that now hangs inside the Louisa County Courthouse. Trice would come home from his day job making parts for kitchen and bathroom cabinets, and work on the painting. It now hangs in the only courtroom among other paintings of historic Virginia notables, the lone portrait of an African American.

When it finally became clear that Obama would capture the Democratic nomination, Trice searched to find the right words. "I don't know if saying I'm proud would be sufficient." He thought about Langston. "It took people like John Mercer Langston to pave the way for Barack Obama," said Trice, 52, an African American. "We stand on the shoulders of a lot of people, even those who did menial things. They opened doors, and others came along and opened more doors. It's something wonderful."

There was a long period of time when African American politicians were discouraged from seeking the highest offices, and some were afraid to even try. Shirley Chisholm ran for president in 1972 under the slogan "Unbought and Unbossed," and arrived at the Democratic National Convention with 151 delegates pledged to her. That she was given a prominent speaking slot was seen as progress. Twelve years later, Jesse Jackson made his first run for president, after many private meetings among black leaders about who should run and if it was the right time. Jackson defied conventional wisdom by winning five Democratic primaries and caucuses, leading to a second campaign in 1988. That year he won 13 primaries and caucuses, doubled his total votes to 7 million and finished runner-up to nominee Michael Dukakis.

Doug Wilder, the grandson of slaves, understands the significance of simply trying: "When I talked about running for lieutenant governor, they said, 'No way, man, you can make it.' And when I said I'd run for governor, they said, 'This man is certifiably insane!' "

Few African American politicians have been more pioneering than Wilder, now the mayor of Richmond: He was the first black state senator elected since Reconstruction, the first black elected lieutenant governor, and the first black elected governor, all in a 20-year period from 1969 to 1989.

Of Obama's prospects to be president, he said: "The country is ready. The people are always ahead of the leaders."

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Albert G. "Sambo" Johnson dropped by Hottinger Greenhouses the other day, and Eddie Hottinger and his young salesman stopped selling tomatoes and seeds and mulch and fixed their gaze on the 77-year-old man in the gray Dickies work jumper.

Sambo, as everyone in town calls him, is someone people like to listen to. A former county supervisor, for 20 years Johnson was chairman of the Louisa County Democratic Party. A white man called Sambo? Johnson explained that when he was a kid, a black family worked for and lived with his family. They had a little boy named Sambo, and Johnson's brother just started calling him Sambo, too. And it stuck.