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NATIONAL
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Obama’s Nomination 'A Step Toward' Fulfillment of the Dream
by Hazel Trice Edney
NNPA Editor-in-Chief
DENVER (NNPA) – America has come a step closer to the fulfillment of Dr. King’s dream in Denver this week with the official coronation and acceptance speech of U. S. Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for president, civil rights insiders say.
“Barack Obama's address to the nation is unparalleled in its significance. Coming nearly 50 years after the dramatic impact that both president John Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made when they broke new ground for all Americans, he is able to use the benefits he received from both trailblazers and offer America a plan to restore our global role as a country of conscience and persuade a new generation of Americans about the importance of public service,” says Harvard law school professor Charles Ogletree, also executive director of Harvard’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.
Obama’s speech, which was set for Invesco Field at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, is widely viewed as a prophetic moment.
It is exactly 45 years to the date that Dr. King gave the historic “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963.
With the nomination of Sen. Obama, who would become the nation’s first Black president, the “status quo” in racial progress has proven to have shifted somewhat; especially given Obama’s Democratic Primary win in vastly White states, such as 2 percent Black Iowa.
Yet, the conditions of Black people – the racial disparities that remain in every significant area of American life - from economics to education to criminal justice to health statistics – are what concern some pioneers, including the most ardent Obama supporters.
“I think the American dream or portions of the American dream is being fulfilled on that day when Barack Obama accepts the nomination of his party,” says the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who was at the March on Washington in 1963 as co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. King. “It’s not the total fulfillment, but it certainly is a step in that direction toward fulfilling that dream where people are judged by the ‘content of their character’ rather than the color of their skin.”
Lowery described the timing of the Obama speech as “spiritual justice at play.”
Still, activists must remain vigilant to assure that spiritual justice be transformed into tangible justice, agrees Dr. Ron Daniels, president of the New York-based Institute of the Black World 21st Century. He says Obama’s nomination ranks among the most significant milestones toward achieving ''a more perfect union'' and there is “great cause for Black people and all Americans to celebrate.”
But, Daniels adds, “There is also a potential downside or danger that a significant number of White Americans and even some African-Americans will see Obama's nomination and prospective capture of the White House as evidence that we as a nation have achieved a post-racial, post-civil rights society.”
This moment in history is particularly significant for some who actually experienced the blood, sweat and tears sacrificed for racial progress.
Myrlie Evers-Williams, whose late husband, Medgar Evers, paid the ultimate price, introduced and endorsed Obama at a rally in Bend, Ore., last May.
Medgar Evers, an NAACP field secretary, was one of the first martyrs of the civil rights movement, assassinated in front of his Jackson, Miss. home on June 12, 1963.
Evers' death prompted Pres. Kennedy to press Congress to pass a comprehensive civil rights bill, which President Lyndon Johnson signed into law after Kennedy was also assassinated five months later.
Dr. Evers-Williams said she made up her mind about supporting Obama after recalling a debate with Evers during which she backed down on a position.
“Medgar became very annoyed with me for doing that. And he said to me, and I quote, ‘Isn’t there anything that you believe in enough to stand up and fight for it?’ I have never forgotten that…I believe in how we can change this country for the better.”
She says the power of Obama’s agenda is that it encompasses issues that affect the lives of all people, regardless of race.
“I hope this country will end up being a much better place for all of us to live in terms of jobs, in terms of equal opportunity, in terms of having homes, in terms of being able to move forward in businesses and develop our self-worth. And that hopefully, we will have some semblance of piece in this world.”
The nomination of Barack Obama has been long-anticipated. It culminates a hard-fought primary season in which he and Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton ran neck-in-neck for months in what appeared as a winless contest between the prospective first Black or first woman president.
Now that it’s over, Obama and his vice presidential pick, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, will show down with John McCain, who will announce his vice president before the Republican National Convention begins Sept. 1.
Obama’s historical campaign is a culmination of the Civil Rights Movement as well as the trailblazing of other African-American presidential candidates. They included New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm in 1972; the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. in 1984 and 1988; Chicago Sen. Carol Moseley Braun in 2004 and the Rev. Al Sharpton, also in 2004.
“He’s running the last lap of a 64-year race,” says Jackson, dating the struggle back to Brown v. Board of Education of 1954, the Supreme Court case that overturned legalized segregation. Jackson listed a string of issues that he believes must remain on the forefront of Obama’s agenda, including urban renewal, incarceration rates and low quality education.
Lowery assures that this moment in history does not mean civil rights warriors can relax.
“The civil rights community is still on the case,” Lowery assures. “The civil rights community will hold him accountable for addressing the issues that are important to justice and fairness and equity. He’s not going to get a pass on that. This is not the fulfillment of the dream. But, it’s a step toward it.”
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