^{by Tom Head, About.com Guide to Civil Liberties}

Image courtesy of the U.S. Department of State.

Last week, Barack Obama received Secret Service protection--the earliest protection ever given to a candidate during the stages of a presidential race. (As the spouse of a president, Hillary Clinton has had Secret Service protection since 1992.) This underscores the very real threat that black candidates still face from a domestic terrorism network made up largely of white supremacist groups.

Although neither the Obama campaign nor the Secret Service has confirmed or denied the presence of actual threats, it seems unlikely that there have not been any. I only needed thirty seconds in Google to find that white supremacist web sites have been fixated on Obama, and not in a friendly way.

For an idea of the kind of mail he might be getting, we can look back at the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 campaigns. From a CNN interview:

(Jesse) JACKSON: There was such an antipathy toward my running, we received the most threats of any candidate ever.

(John) KING: Jackson aides and Secret Service officials from those days recall racial slurs, hate mail, and death threats, not just against the candidate.

JACKSON: My family, I had the most sensitivity to the fact, whether they have security in our home, the threats were very real, sometimes very overt, sometimes very covert. But everyplace we went, Secret Service was always on the edge. And if you think it's not real, think about what happened to John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy, and Dr. King, there is the ever-present threat.

KING: Obama aides are reluctant to discuss internal deliberations. But one top advisor tells CNN racism and security were of course among the factors Obama and his wife considered when discussing the toll a presidential campaign would take on them, and their two young daughters.

Like Obama, Rev. Jackson was given Secret Service protection shortly after announcing his candidacy due to the threat posed by white supremacist groups.

Colin Powell also encountered substantial hostility from white supremacists in 1995, while he considered running for the 1996 Republican nomination. Some polls had him leading by a double-digit margin among Republicans and non-Republicans alike, most likely due to his leadership role in Operation Desert Storm. He ultimately decided not to run.

While the general consensus seems to be that the danger Powell potentially faced as a black public figure was not a deciding factor in his decision not to run, there is no telling how many potential black candidates--for the presidency, or for lower office--have been dissuaded by white supremacist groups. If we are serious about fighting terrorists who threaten U.S. interests, we should be equally serious about making sure that homegrown terrorists do not get to decide who runs for president.

See also:

• Race Relations a Central Issue in the First 2008 Presidential Debate