Once in a lifetime. Once in history. I was reflecting on just what the election of Barack Hussein Obama as 44th President of the United States means. I don’t want to oversell it, because today–and the day after–taxes are still too high and son
Once in a lifetime.
Once in history.
I was reflecting on just what the election of Barack Hussein Obama as 44th President of the United States means.
I don’t want to oversell it because today–and the day after–taxes are still too high and sons and daughters and husbands and wives will still be dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Racism is still a governing principle in where people live, eat, work and worship. The city is still cutting jobs, and the Chicago Transit Authority is still threatening to raise bus fares. Food prices are still outrageous, and Chicagoans are still dreading their first heating bill.
But today, the streets of Chicago are radiant, with the smiles creasing faces and some eyes bloodshot because of the tears that have been shed. They are walking a bit taller in Chicago today; their backs straight and heads back, patting themselves on the back for their accomplishment. Some people still have confetti in their heads, and they are basking in the incredible glow of history.
There are children in Chicago today, Black children, Hispanic children, who don’t have to wonder if this nation is ready for a Black president. This nation has one. There are grandmothers in Chicago today, Black grandmothers, who look at their grandchildren and see possibilities, see hope. There are teens who know that they can no longer use the word “can’t” because it has been rendered obsolete. Of course you can. Of course WE can.
I know this is a scene being repeated all over this nation. In cities and towns, on street corners and barbershops, in innercity high-rises and swank suburban split-levels, Black people are considering that history, now made, can be re-made and repeated.
But nowhere is that more apparent than here in Chicago, Obama’s hometown, where he met his wife, raises his children, and began this improbable, impossible, and, yes, audacious journey. Here in Chicago, one million people gathered in the park to drink it all in, to say, “yes, I was there when history happened.” But, if you ask me, this journey could not have begun anywhere else. This man, this time, this place, were destined.
As the hometown of the first Black president, it can be argued that Chicago, not Washington, D.C., is the new Capitol City. Chicago, which has spawned two Black U.S. Senators (and if Gov. Rod Blagojevich knows what’s good for him, soon, a third) in the last 20 years, while in the last 150 years all the other states have only produced three. For Black politics, Chicago is the Mecca. It is a rough-and-tumble town, with ward bosses and precinct captains and abusive police and segregation that resists any gentrification. But it is also a place where Black politicians flourish. The sheer numbers of Black voters (even counting only the live ones) creates a strong base of support. The political savvy of the practitioners of the art here is unparalleled.
It has been that way for many, many years, going back to Oscar DePriest, the first Black elected to Congress from a northern state in 1928. The city has three Blacks in Congress, Danny Davis, Bobby Rush and Jesse Jackson Jr. Rush and Davis came up through the city’s City Council, where Robert’s Rules of Order are rarely invoked. The city has already had two Black mayors, the late Harold Washington and Eugene Sawyer, and is also the headquarters for the Nation of Islam, headed by Min. Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Operation/PUSH. Rev. Al Sharpton has begun the process of opening a headquarters of his National Action Network in the city.
What that clout will bring will have to wait on another discussion, another column, on another day. That clout has yet to address rampant violent crime, and poor schools and a widening chasm between the haves and the have-nots.
For today, this day, the unmistakable truth is that a majority of Americans chose a Black man to be President of the United States. What it says about this nation is that a corner has been turned. We may have indeed begun the process of living up to the true meaning of our creed. There is certainly more to be done, but many never expected this nation to get this far.
Lou Ransom is executive editor of the Chicago Defender. He can be reached at lransom@chicagodefender.com.
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