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A survey conducted by Columbia University's Center for African-American Politics and Society (CAAPS), USA Today and ABC News reveals a sense of optimism and national pride among African Americans in the run up to the November 2008 presidential election. The Black Politics Survey shows that blacks express the greatest enthusiasm for the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. But despite a sense of pride and higher rates of political interest and engagement in the campaign, black Americans are deeply divided over what are the best strategies for individual and group advancement.

The survey—taken Sept. 11-14 from a random national sample of 1941 adults—also reveals the growing complexities of black identities, and shows that social identities besides race, particularly national and class identities, may have greater importance in determining how black Americans may perceive themselves in the future. These competing identities open up the possibility of blacks building and joining multiracial coalitions in a variety of causes that address issues of mutual interests across different communities.

"The survey results indicate that African-American identity may be in flux: that most blacks feel that other forms of social identities—such as social class and patriotism—are more salient to them than their racial identity challenges conventional wisdom," said Fredrick Harris, director of CAAPS and lead designer of the survey. "Blacks' enthusiastic support of the Obama campaign may reflect greater interests on the part of many blacks in building multiracial and cross-class coalitions under a variety of concerns, including education, economic justice and heath care."

The Center on African American Politics and Society, part of Columbia's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), provides an intellectual infrastructure for social science research on political, social and economic conditions affecting black communities. Thanks in large part to Harris' research on racial attitudes about the presidential elections, the Black Politics Survey is the first collaboration of its kind between Columbia University and a major news organization, according to Robert Schapiro, director of the ISERP, which provided some funding for the poll.

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