155 History was made in November 2008. Record-breaking numbers of vot- ers lined up to vote the frst African-American President into of fce, with Barack Obama handily beating Arizona Republican Senator John McCain and winning 52% of the electoral vote, a clear mandate for change. 1 African-Americans made up 13% of the electorate, a two percent increase from the 2006 elections, 2 and approximately 95% of black voters cast their ballots in favor of Obama. 3 Within that 13%, black women had the highest voter turnout rate among all racial, gender, and ethnic groups. 4 As the election results were posted, the media and the president-elect himself made grand proclamations about the signifcance of the election, as well as what it portended for the country’s future. New York Times writer Adam Nagourney described voters’ election of Obama as “sweep- ing away the last racial barrier in American politics,” continuing with a quote from Obama’s victory speech in Grant Park, Chicago: CHAPTER 6 The State of Black Women in Politics Under the First Black President © The Author(s) 2019 D. Harris, Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Trump, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95456-1_6 1 Johnson, Alex . (2008, November 5). “Barack Obama Elected 44th President.” MSNBC. com. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27531033/. Retrieved on August 24, 2010. 2 Nagourney, Adam . (2008, November 4). “Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls.” The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05elect. html. Retrieved on August 24, 2010. 3 Lopez, Mark Hugo, & Taylor, Paul. (2009, April 30). “Dissecting the 2008 Electorate: Most Diverse in U.S. History.” Pew Research Center. http://pewresearch.org/ pubs/1209/racial-ethnic-voters-presidential-election. Retrieved on September 1, 2010. 4 Lopez and Taylor.