Our Moment

As a history buff, I have often wondered what it must feel like to stand at that moment in time when the world changes and to know it will never again resemble what it had been. However, since I was a child I have harbored a fear such a moment would come and I would miss it. Like stepping into the bathroom during the best part of the TV show, I would have walked away from the arena at the exact wrong time. Or worse, what if such dramatic events were recognizable only in retrospect – the heat of the moment obscuring the truth from the witnesses? I do not worry about this anymore, because I have seen history being made this year and the world is different today.

On some of the coldest days last winter, I stood in barns, school cafeterias, community centers, college campuses and park shelters to listen to those who wanted to be our next president. Hillary Clinton ignited such passion that it lit the way for us to envision a woman in the Oval Office. Barack Obama, the visionary, talked about hope and the realization of a dream painted by another great leader nearly forty years earlier. And, there was John McCain, the war hero, who reminded us that the best of America is visible and at work even at our darkest moments.

My friend Opel Simmons and I were waxing on the other night about what this election means to us, but Opel was able to put this into perspective better than I. He explained that we were members of the first post-civil rights generation and, as an African American, he was a proud beneficiary of a movement paid for with the blood, sweat and tears of countless Americans who struggled before our time. But, Opel pointed out, our children would not be American beneficiaries of the civil and women’s rights movements, they would just be Americans. Color and sex would not determine their fates and as Opel’s seven-year-old daughter pointed out, “Martin King’s dream was coming true” right before our eyes – a moment in history for us to witness.

Barack Obama’s candidacy and his election are important from a racial perspective, but if we view them only in those terms we will fail to see this moment for what it truly is. The United States faces a war on two fronts, our economy is in dire straights and many Americans are facing difficult times. But, the American people dug deep and participated in a campaign for president in a way few ever thought was possible. I attended Obama events in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and watched the now President-elect accept his nomination in Denver under a star filled sky. In each place I sensed something more than excitement about a campaign. I sensed a people ready to again take up the mantle to fight for the American Dream and put this country back on track.

This, my friends, is our moment to see the world change and it is up to us to make it happen.