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     Barack Obama's electoral victory four years ago made history. Some would contribute the groundbreaking event to the Civil Right movement, to American liberalism, or to a voter backlash resulting from the war in Iraq and to the failure of the government to prevent 9/11.

    No doubt all of them played an enormous part, particulary the 400 years of struggle by African people against ignorance and racism. But, there is another factor (albeit less influential and less historic) and that is the increasingly prominent roles of black actors in blockbuster films.

     I never thought that I would live to see a black man holding the most important political office in the United States, or the world for that matter. Obama's impressive showing was not just a victory for black people, but a important step forward in race relations and a long awaited departure from the nation’s turbulent past.

     I can remember in the 1960's attending afternoon matinees with the crew. Each and every Saturday the local theater offered up a carte du jour of Tarzan of the Apes, Elvis Presley, or John Wayne. Unlike our fathers, we were spared having to digest portions of Steppin’ Fitchit's monkey shine or Amos and Andy's buffoonery.

      In their rare appearances, black actors donned the roles of slaves, maids, butlers and servants, oftentimes with more than a touch of minstrel antics and Stagolee-like bravado. Hollywood still preferred black caricatures over black characters.

      Importantly, during the fifties, Sidney Portier and Harry Belafonte won Hollywood acclaim in dramatic roles, planting seeds of progressive change in the motion picture film industry. Some argued that the roles were assimilationist, Uncle Tom roles. To them I say: some critics, unsatisfied with the pace of progress, called both Martin Luther King and Booker T. Washington uncle toms.

     But, no one today can refute the fact that they knocked down barriers and reshaped the way American thought about color. During this same period, Hollywood turned out quality films like Carmen Jones (with the great Dorothy Dandridge) and A Raisin in the Sun (with its all-star cast). The American public (blacks and whites) helped to turn these films into box office gold.

    In the seventies, Hollywood churned out films designed to exploit black people's hunger for heroes of color: Super Fly, Across 110th Street and Shaft were created to meet the demand. Blacks got their heroes, but at a dear price. In contrast to roles of the fifties, these roles lacked depth and were robbed it there universality.

     The world stage was narrowed to ghetto backdrops, where pimps, drug dealers and gun-toting ruffians replaced Buckwheat, Black Sambo, and Picaninny. The black image continued to suffer from the legacy of racism. While these 'blaxploitation' films afforded many actors the opportunity to apply their trade, the stereotypical roles would typecast many of them in the long run.

     Did Hollywood purposefully set out to degrade black people? Let just say that Hollywood has always played it safe and rarely ventured beyond what they thought white America wanted to see. So, for the most part, Hollywood can be accused being cowards in the faces of racist tradition. But, time would suggest that Hollywood should have given white audiences more credit.

       By the nineties, Television depiction of the blacks made the giant leap from Goodtimes to The Cosby Show. Meanwhile, Hollywood was casting black as generals (Morgan Freeman in Virus), corporate moguls (Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea), and presidents (Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact, even God (again, Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty).

     Ironically, just a few years ago, Chris Rock starred in the film, Head of State, which figured a black man running for president. Although, suggesting a slim and unlikely possibility (due to a broad cultural schism), the film gave a glimpse of things to come.

    Thousands of white voters lining up for hours to gain admission to the venues where Obama was speaking revealed a fundamental change in America. I can’t help but conclude that Hollywood was a powerful agent of change. Although, I'm not suggesting that Hollywood alone paved the way. But one can argue that seeing is believing. That is to say that men and women seen in powerful leadership roles may have compelled millions of Americans to rethink race, and consequently, politics.

   That is to say that Dennis Haysbert's portrayal of a black president on the award winning television show 24 may have paved the way for an Obama. When I wrote American Messiah (about a mystical black child resurrecting American from the bowels of hell) the plot seemed farfetched, even more fanciful than the apocalyptic theme itself.

    Was the literary marketplace ready for such a bold, black image I asked myself? At the time, I had my doubts. However, today it seems quite plausible. Seen in the context of American values and traditions (religious and secular), a black man or woman can represent an American Icon. Does it mean that race, with the aid of Hollywood casting, has been rendered a dead issue? Definitely not. But, a monumental step has been taken with the success of Barack Obama, and the future remains to be written.

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