A Down Payment on Our Hopes and Dreams

Yesterday afternoon I heard an All Things Considered interview with Representative John Lewis, a member of Congress from Georgia, a civil rights pioneer, and the last surviving speaker from Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington. In the interview, Lewis characterized the Obama nomination as a "down payment" on Martin Luther King's dreams. And as I think about it, that's such a perfect characterization of Obama's candidacy for the presidency.

This summer, I read a book called From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, written by historian Michael Klarman. The book is a lengthy and thorough review of race relations in the United States. At more than 500 pages, it's no quick read.

But I can honestly report that every time I picked up the volume I was totally engaged. For the duration of my stay in California, my family was forced to endure my indignant readings from the book. As I read, I experienced some moments of great disappointment in my nation. The book contained example after example of the ways in which black Americans have been subjugated, abused, and downright ignored by the laws and Constitution of our country. For every triumphant moment (and there were some), there were examples of injustices so upsetting that I found myself wanting to shout my indignation from the rooftop. From the efforts to deny blacks an education, to the enforced servitude of sharecropping contracts, to the multiple examples of black defendant confessions coerced through torture and violence but rarely thrown out by the courts, I was alternately angry and disappointed in my nation.

I knew about these things, of course. But I was reading this book at the same time that the nation was giving serious consideration to an African-American candidate for the presidency. And the current political reality was at such odds with the political reality of the nation I was reading about; a time less than 50 years ago.

Klarman reviews a staggering amount of material (the bibliography is more than 40 pages long) to detail the reality and complexity of race relations in the United States. It's clear that no branch of American government has clean hands in this matter. From the state legislatures who actively created Jim Crow laws, to the governors who refused any kind of desegregation, to the Congress and a President unwilling to undertake corrective action, and the Supreme Court that moved in fits and starts, every institution in American political life is responsible for the disastrous circumstances of black Americans. And don't get me started on the American public, who for generations actively endorsed not just segregation but the absolute exclusion of black Americans from all areas of civic and economic life; from the life of equality and opportunity that the rest of us take for granted. Honestly, it's overwhelming.

All of this was at the forefront of my mind as I watched Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination for the presidency last night. Fittingly, Obama took this giant leap forward 45 years to the day that Martin Luther King told the nation that he had a dream. These days, the Obama campaign is called historical by the news media. And, of course, it is. But for so many people the line is just a throw-away. Because I don't think that we really realize just how historical, just how extraordinary it is for a black man to be so close to living in the White House as the American president.

Less than 45 years ago, many black citizens were not permitted to exercise their right to vote. Things are better today. But it is by no means good enough. Today, there are more black young men in prison than in college. 23% of black Americans live in poverty; 33% of African American children grow up in poverty, hungry for supper and a good education.

So given the place from which black Americans began, it is truly amazing to think that we may be on the precipice of electing our first African American president. My son and I sat down this morning and watched the Obama speech together. I wanted him to see this historical moment, even if he doesn't yet understand its complexity. JT attends one of the most diverse schools in the state of New Jersey and there his belief that people are equal because they are human beings is reinforced by his playmates every day. At the age of 8, JT is as color blind as he can be.

Someday, he'll learn that the world isn't as fair and open-minded as he is. When he does, I hope that he remembers this moment in his life. A moment when he sat in the living room and watched his mama cry as an African American man accepted the nomination for the White House. A moment when a nation truly considered just how far our hopes and dreams might take us.