WE HAVE OVERCOME
The tears in Jesse Jackson’s eyes said it all. Centuries of pain cleansed; damaged faith in humanity salvaged; a prophet’s dream redeemed. The election of Barack Obama as America’s first African American president has rained like a beneficent storm over a long parched waste land, offering relief to millions of people of color and others around the world who have believed in the value of racial equality and who yearn for human solidarity. Mr. Obama’s accomplishment is a testament to his grace and intelligence, to his unflappable demeanor and to his unparalleled oratorical gifts. He scaled a mountain burdened with history and human ignorance in a country that gave little indication it was truly ready for the change that he represented. Many thought that America wasn’t enlightened enough for a man of Obama’s caliber. I was one of them.
There is something eminently biblical to Senator Obama’s victory. At the moment when the world’s economy has fallen apart, a new leader arrives representing a union of black and white, carrying not merely other politicians on his coat-tails, but the hopes of humanity. Though he said little during the campaign about his particular expertise as a professor of Constitutional law, the man from the land of Lincoln has a unique opportunity to educate the republic about the meaning of its governing scripture and offer a healing of the wounds that have divided us for so long.
The tears in Jesse Jackson’s eyes said it all. Centuries of pain cleansed; damaged faith in humanity salvaged; a prophet’s dream redeemed. The election of Barack Obama as America’s first African American president has rained like a beneficent storm over a long parched waste land, offering relief to millions of people of color and others around the world who have believed in the value of racial equality and who yearn for human solidarity. Mr. Obama’s accomplishment is a testament to his grace and intelligence, to his unflappable demeanor and to his unparalleled oratorical gifts. He scaled a mountain burdened with history and human ignorance in a country that gave little indication it was truly ready for the change that he represented. Many thought that America wasn’t enlightened enough for a man of Obama’s caliber. I was one of them.
There is something eminently biblical to Senator Obama’s victory. At the moment when the world’s economy has fallen apart, a new leader arrives representing a union of black and white, carrying not merely other politicians on his coat-tails, but the hopes of humanity. Though he said little during the campaign about his particular expertise as a professor of Constitutional law, the man from the land of Lincoln has a unique opportunity to educate the republic about the meaning of its governing scripture and offer a healing of the wounds that have divided us for so long.
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