It is going to take the African American, and in particular the African American male, to save this nation. For that reason – and with the explanation that follows – the Tri-State Defender endorses Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in his bid to secure the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

When you look at this nation, the invisibility of the African American man is startling, and it is having devastating consequences.

In the culture of America, it was the African American who had to be submerged deep on account of his relationship with the European American man. He had to completely go out of himself.

This fact is at the root of books such as the “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison and “The Outsider” by Richard Wright.

It took the European American man to bring this nation into being. He was the one out front in terms of economics and other fundamentals. Today – given the way the nation and the world has unfolded – the European American man has the least amount of leverage to take the country (and the world) forward.

Taking into account this country’s peculiar history with slavery, the African American male is the person with the most leverage for fundamental change and progress.

This line of thought brings Sen. Obama front and center. He is in position to stimulate phenomenal change, notwithstanding that he needs more information to take advantage of the opportunity.

All over the world, men are moving in or toward battle. The United States is caught up in this world wind and the nation is tilting. The African American man has got to show up eventually if the nation is to ever right itself.

The African American man is the real blood-and-guts backbone of hard work in this nation and he is in a mess and he is going to stay there until he straightens it out. His messy predicament and the essential threat to the nation are intertwined.

The threat from which the African American male must save the nation is in the fact that so many young African American boys have no where to go but into gangs. This reality is growing everyday despite minor ebbs in the reported numbers.

 This problem may look small to some in the face of the unease about a recession, scary health-care costs, global terrorism, the foreclosure crisis and the war in Iraq. It is, however, not small. In fact, it is quite the contrary and the possibility of a level of domestic warfare much more pronounced than what we are experiencing now is frightfully real.

Right now, there is no force of African-American men to even be around their boys. That is the legacy that slavery left. There is no tool other than to incarcerate these boys and locking them up is not going to stop what essentially is guerilla warfare. These young boys are not scared of jail.

If these young men are not given a sound platform for being who they are essentially as humans and for mining their natural creativity, they are going to wreck the nation from within.

There is a subliminal surge that has powered Obama to the front; a subliminal recognition that the African American man needs to be at the table. We’ve never been at the table in a primary way since we have been in this country.

African American boys don’t have a precedent to teach them how to be at the table. So not only does the African American man need to rise, he needs to rise with knowledge.

Look at the recent mayoral election in Memphis. It left a gash deeper in Memphis that many seem to want to acknowledge. The incumbent had to go “black power” to combat the forces against him. No matter what the incumbent says from this point forward, it is unlikely that he can bridge the divide.

African Americans who do get into office do not have the tools they need to do anything substantive about economics and business and the internal threat outlined here.

And so we are faced with a choice on Feb. 5. We must choose a candidate best situated to maneuver within and grow outside of the status quo of slavery. This newspaper takes the position that Sen. Obama is that person. Vote for him and demand accountability from him.

This accountability must be in the context of Ellison, Wright, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington and others who heretofore have not been considered in our choices.

Many who read this endorsement will no doubt argue that it is being made on the basis of race. Each and everyone one who take this position are wrong. It doesn’t have anything to do with race. It has everything to do with the condition of slavery.

America has nothing to empower the African-American man, so he has to empower himself. He has got to get his hands on money and political power. Most of all, he needs knowledge.

It’s not race. It is an economic and political situation.

Noted author Taylor Branch (“Pillar of Fire, etc.) makes the point that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the new founding father for the nation. Rosa Parks opened the door, but he had to rise up, go to the frontline and carry the load.

As a result, Sen. Obama is standing on stage. He is a product. He must know that Dr. King said the first thing we are going to have to do to get anywhere is squeeze slavery out of ourselves. He must know that Dr. King acknowledged that he had not completed that process.

And so we struggle on with a “continuing past” that has people on both sides of the so-called black-white divide wearing deeply engrained frowns every Fourth of July. African American males are frontline pushers of this mindset because they feel like they’ve never gotten justice.

The time is here to take a substantive look at the nature of America. We need to tell the truth: slavery still lives.

Solving slavery is a national need. Empowered African Americans are in a unique position to stop war all over the world because there is no basis for distrusting African Americans anywhere in the world. We’ve not been out on any colonial endeavors no matter how you slice it.

It’s time to play this card.