As Barack Obama prepares to take his place as perhaps the most ascendent black man ever in the United States, millions of ordinary black Americans are left to ponder one question: Will Obama's election really change anything for the black community?

Few would argue that November 4 was ordinary. But, while 24-hour news channels like CNN debated the prospect of more black governors, and ESPN squawked about the importance and likelihood of black ownership in sports franchises, millions of black Americans were considering the probability of more vital advances.

Studies have long shown that black males are more chronically unemployed and underemployed, die younger and are more likely to be sent to jail for longer stints than other racial and ethnic groups. Many have pointed to November 4 as the potential turning of the tide in racial inequality in America.

However, according to black scholar Boyce Watkins, a professor at Syracuse University and a regular analyst on CNN, FOX News, CBS, and other national media, the tangible impact of Barack Obama's win may be overestimated.

"The long-term influence is that people are going to realize that having a black president is not going to change the lives of black people all that much," Watkins says.

Ifi Amadiume, a black Associate Professor of African Studies at Dartmouth College, agrees there will be limitations to Obama's ability to directly influence the lives of black Americans. According to her, although the Obama movement is going to generate new leaders in both the short-term and long-term, Obama himself will no longer be the leader because he has opted for the job of president.

"The leader of a political party is not the leader of a social or global movement," she says. "They are two different kinds of leadership."

If Barack Obama is able to influence change either directly or indirectly, recent data suggests it cannot come soon enough.

The U.S. Labor Department reports the national unemployment rate for blacks at 11.1 percent compared to only 5.9 percent for whites. And, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that at midyear 2007 there were 4,618 black male sentenced prisoners per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,747 Hispanic male sentenced prisoners per 100,000 Hispanic males and 773 white male sentenced prisoners per 100,000 white males.

According to a report by the Schott Foundation for Public Education, a Massachusetts-based organization that advocates for equality in the classroom, just 47 percent of black male students in the United States graduated High School in 2006 compared to 75 percent of their white male classmates. And the Education Sector has released a report based on U.S. Department of Education figures detailing huge gaps between the college graduation rates of white students and those of blacks.

Statistics like these have driven much of the black community to look to Obama's election as a vehicle for change. And, Watkins says he would like Obama to remember that it was the vibrant support of the black community that helped propel him into office.

"If you are going to accept comparisons to MLK," Watkins says, "then the truth is that there is a certain mandate placed upon you to solve problems that your equally-politicized white colleagues would never touch; like the horrible inner city educational system, and the human rights abuses taking place in American prisons."

Amadiume offers a different perspective, saying that the presidency presents some limitations to Obama, and that the American president should not serve any particular community more than another.

However, Amadiume does believe that the symbolic impact of Obama's ascendence could be profound.

"The African American community can take a personal pride in Barack Obama as one of their sons and support him as much as they can," She says. "There is a new energy and optimism for - and in - the youth. I had no doubt in my mind about the importance of an African American like Obama winning the Presidency."

Indeed, despite the sobering statistics and guarded expectations, there is much optimism about Obama's symbolic influence on changes in inequality and achievement for black Americans.

According to Watkins, this is the first time an African-American who is not an entertainer, athlete or criminal has been so prominently featured on mainstream media outlets.

"Black people are like circus fleas who sit at the bottom of a jar with no top on it," Watkins says. "They stay there because there has always been a lid keeping them from going certain places. But once someone shows them that the lid is gone, they fly out of the jar."