An interesting and moving article in the UK Guardian on Obama and Jessie Jackson, complete with a quote from Marx.
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under given circumstances directly encountered and inherited from the past
The article starts with Jackson describing his campaign experience in 1988.
In Wisconsin, a state with a black population of just 2%, white people were handing him their babies to kiss. "Look, something is happening up here," he told one of his aides. "And I'm not quite sure what it is. But this outpouring of affection wherever I go, it's for real. It's real, I'm telling you, it's there. I know when it's there."
You don't have to agree with everything it says to see a connection. The babies that Jessie Jackson kissed 20 years ago: shit me not, they are going to the polls.
Perhaps the day has come.