Today Barack Obama captured the Democratic nomination for president, making him the first African-American to run on a major party ticket in the history of our nation. In 2000, if you had told me a black man would be anywhere close to being our president before I grew old and gray, I would not have believed you. If the United States ever elected anybody other than a white man, I figured it would be decades away.
I was wrong. The time was just a few short years in the future, in 2008.
My grandparents grew up in a time when Jim Crow laws were the status quo. My parents were among the first generations to attend integrated public schools. I have seen the remnants of that racist past in my own life, and I know the knee-jerk fears and prejudices that still lie in my heart. But despite all that, despite the persistence of history and the reality of wounds yet to be healed in both black and white, we are about to witness a person of color vie for the leadership of the free world.
I believe I will tell my children and grandchildren about the year that a black man rose to compete for the highest office in our land. I will tell them how unbelievable it was back in 2008, how remarkable, how controversial. I will tell them how, even if Obama lost in November, he nonetheless won simply by going farther than any person of color before him.
Whatever your political leanings, let us pause for a moment and be proud of ourselves. The year is 2008, and we have come a long way.
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