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We would like to offer our sincere thanks to all of the authors who worked diligently to contribute to this volume. We are deeply grateful for your willingness to share your thoughts, ideas, and passions. Thank you for participating in an effort to leave an intellectual legacy for generations to come.

On a brisk day in Springfield, Illinois, an attractive African-American family stood on the steps of the Illinois Old State Capitol waving to a rapturous and diverse audience of Americans following the family's patriarch's announcement that he would run for the presidency of the United States of America. Standing in the shadows of the legislative building where he worked and the adopted hometown of President Abraham Lincoln who was known as the “Great Emancipator” of the slaves, the symbolism was lost on no one. By announcing his candidacy, he was entering one of the most competitive and diverse fields of presidential candidates in the history of the nation, including its first female and first Latino candidates. When the freshman Illinois senator, Barack Hussein Obama decided to make a bid for the presidency, many Americans were surprised and fascinated with the possibility of its first African-American leader. Older Americans, especially African Americans, had clear knowledge and some personal memories of the national history replete with the vestiges of slavery, the Civil War, and a failed Reconstruction Era in the forms of de jure segregation in the South and de facto segregation throughout the rest of the country. Despite the progress made as a result of the legislation emanating from the activism of the 1960s civil rights movement, this history created a socio-cultural narrative rife with prejudice, racism, and discrimination. Consequently, the nation's race relations narrative was fraught with the tensions between its majority and minorities.

Barack Obama's emergence as the leader of the world's most powerful nation stirred much enthusiasm in Africa. This article examines Obama's relationship to Africa and African reactions to Obama – spanning from the time of his election to the United States Senate to the current period of his role as president of the United States. Focusing specifically on Obama's Ghana speech and subsequent African policy initiatives, the article suggests that many Africans are disappointed with Obama's Africa policy and that this is the result of several misperceptions: misperceptions of Obama's power as US president, misperceptions of his moderate political world view, and misperceptions of his cosmopolitan identity as an individual of African ancestry.