In 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer, "sick and tired of being sick and tired", led a fight at the Democratic National Convention that shook up the nation. Her fight was to seat black delegates from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In 2008, our fight may be to stop the DNC from using superdelegates to deny Senator Barack Obama from becoming the democratic nominee for President.

Senator Barack Obama is shaking up the political establishment and causing Democratic Party leadership to scurry, scheme, and prepare to take the nomination away from him with their superdelegates.

At the beginning of the Democratic National Committee Primary/Caucus process, the leadership of the party was preparing for (so they thought) the inevitable victory of Senator Hillary Clinton. As a matter of fact they were preparing to coronate her after the results came in from the February 5th Super Tuesday Primary/Caucus vote. Barack rocked their world! Who would have thought that as of this writing Senator Barack Obama would be winning the majority of the states, the majority of the elected delegates, and the majority of the popular vote. He is now the leading candidate!

The only count that Senator Clinton leads Senator Obama in is the super delegates. There are a total of 4,049 delegates. There are two kinds of delegates: pledged delegates and superdelegates. Pledged delegates represent the preferences of the voters and are awarded through the primary/caucus voting process. Superdelegates are selected by the party. Of the 4,049 delegates, 3,253 are pledged and 796 are super.

The superdelegates draw my deepest concern. The 796 superdelegates include 221 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 48 senators, 31 governors, 397 members of the Democratic National Committee, 23 Democratic Party leaders and 76 others. Who are these people? Officially they are supposed to be uncommitted until the convention, but many have made commitments to a candidate already.

This is how the rip-off can happen. As of this date, according to realclearpolitics.com, Senator Barack Obama has 1,004 elected pledge delegates to Senator Hillary Clinton’s 925 electoral pledge delegates. Senator Barack Obama has 139 super delegates to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s 213 superdelegates. Senator Obama leads in the total delegate count 1,143 to 1,138 for Senator Clinton. Depending upon whose statistics you read the numbers marginally vary.

My main point is that it looks as though neither one of the candidates will get the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination through the election process. All hell will break loose in America if Senator Barack Obama has the most pledged delegates at the end of the election process and the Democratic Party selects Senator Clinton by awarding her the lion’s share of the super delegates. Black people have voted overwhelmingly for Senator Obama across the nation to the tune of over 80%. Young people, new voters, and more white people than many expected have voted for Senator Obama. I say abolish the super delegates! Let the will of the people prevail.

Rep. Rangel, Rep. Towns, Rep. Clarke, Rep. Meeks and many other Black leaders, who are superdelegates and supporters of Sen. Clinton, are out of touch with the will of the Black masses. We beat Towns and Clarke in their own district in Brooklyn. They should be forced to vote the way the district votes--for Senator Barack Obama for President. We have had forty-three presidents of the United States and all of them have been white men.

In the name of Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, and so many others, let’s make Barack Obama the forty-fourth president, the first Black President of the United States of America. Don’t let them steal this one!