This Black History Month is the final such observation of the Obama Presidency. We 1199ers should never forget that it was eight years ago that our Union became an early endorser of Barack Obama’s longshot campaign, and that our thousands of member volunteers fanned out across the country to become the frontline ground troops for his historic victory.

The night the new President-elect, together with his wife and young daughters, appeared in Chicago’s Grant Park to declare victory, is a moment we will remember for the rest of our days. The election of an African-American President of the United States—with the name Barack Hussein Obama, no less—was truly a great historical achievement.

We were filled with optimism for the new President, though we knew better than to believe the pronouncements in the media that this was now to be a “post-racial” society. A single election cycle hardly erased 400 years of chattel slavery; the era of Jim Crow laws—America’s apartheid—and lynching, racism and discrimination against Black people. We also can’t forget the Native American genocide that killed off 90 percent of their population and the theft of half of Mexico that now forms our Western and Southwestern states.

Today, it is at least a year too early to take the full measure of the Obama Presidency or to balance his great accomplishments with where he fell short. No one person, even one as intelligent, level-headed and humane as our President, can overcome systemic problems like poverty and inequality. To change the system takes people power. Most of the progressive challenges of the past eight years—raising the minimum wage, challenging income inequality, climate change (including canceling the XL Pipeline), police abuse and violence, and establishing marriage equality—became part of the political conversation because folks mobilized in the streets to make it so. We in 1199 are proud of our contributions to these struggles.

But it can safely be said that never in our lifetimes has there been such a ferocious attempt by a party out of power to sabotage a president. From day one, a coordinated eight-year-long effort by the Republican Party and its Tea Party shock troops—underwritten by the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and their fellow retrograde billionaires—has sought to demean and destroy the president. This has of course been ideological and in protection of vested economic interests.

But it cannot be fully understood without accounting for racist fears of a Black man in the White House. The increasingly open appeal to racism on the part of the Republican leadership has come to full flower in the current GOP race for a candidate to replace President Obama. Led in the first place by Donald Trump, they are echoed in one form or another by the other Republican candidates. These are crude hate-filled attacks on African-Americans, working people, immigrants (especially those from Mexico and Latin America), women, and Muslims; they tell us all we need to know about what is at stake in the November elections.

The importance of this year’s vote for working people cannot be overstated. Everything we hold dear, everything we’ve ever fought for and won, is at stake—healthcare coverage, our jobs, union rights, wages, pensions, civil rights and liberties, reproductive rights, safety in our homes and communities, immigrant rights, the right to clean air and clean water, and much, much more. All have come under a sustained year-long attack in the Republican political campaign.

So, sisters and brothers, get ready for the fight of our lives. So many thousands of our union members helped turn the tide for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. If anything, we must be even more determined to elect the Democratic candidate for President in November. We are fully confident in our knowledge that, once again, you are ready to make history.