This morning, I fell asleep with the realization that life, from here, will never be the same. An African American is President. Barack Obama is President! Five hours later, I woke up with the same chilling notion and the realization that this was not a dream…but then again it was.
As a student at Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary, a predominantly Black public school on the North side of Jacksonville Florida, we studied the preamble to the Constitution yearly. It was a lesson I greatly looked forward to each year, although never expressed such outwardly out of fear that suddenly, my fascination with the political process would me me somehow less like everyone else or not black enough. Inevitably during these lessons, the birth of an idea would form in one student’s thoughts the he, or she, would be the first Black President of the United States. Although I never aspired to Presidency, on some level it occurred to me how fundamentally flawed the notion was that in the 35-40 years that would lapse between childhood and presidential eligibility, there would not be a person who looked like me in that position. Jesse Jackson never convinced me that he was either capable or a plausible candidate, and the hope that he could accomplish what no other Black man had before him escaped me, a cynical child with a fondness for coffee and race-related topics.
But then at 23, I came across a man who did give me hope; an unassuming state Senator who was uncommonly common…so much so that he was frequently mistaken for the help in many of the Chicago political circles. Barack walked with the people, and lived the life of the common American. His message has long inspired us to believe in the value of education and hard work. That despite the obstacles my husband and I faced as Bush era graduates, to stay the steadied course and believe in something greater than ourselves. In doing so, we would fulfill a dream that was ours to dream and fulfill and not to defer for another day. So, we worked. With a shared passion for public service and education, we threw ourselves into the academic sector and worked voraciously to build a foundation on which our daughter would one day stand. We joined the Barack brigade to put Barack Obama in the national senate where his brand of politics could be more effective for the American people. We trusted the American principle that education is freedom, and that anything is possible. Even in our darkest moments when we didn’t believe, we stayed the course.
As I sat and watched history unfold on the eve of the single greatest fulfillment of our ancestors’ dream deferred, I wept. I wept at the possibility that life for our daughter holds endless possibilities. She will see little girls that look like her running through the White House and know that impossible is nothing. She will see the image of a sound African American family, and relate to it. She will reap the positive trickle down effect of African American images in the media and consider it the norm and not the exception. She will look in the face of opposition and obstacles and rather than shrink away, she will confront each challenge with three simple words: YES I CAN.
But, this isn’t just about her. This race has challenged us to be better Americans and actively participate in the rebuilding and reform of this great country. Our invested stake in this now leveled land of liberty is higher than ever before. And so, we accept the higher expectation that as fellow American citizens, we can stand on the shoulders of those who came before us and aim higher and reach further than ever before. We do this, not as African Americans or Democrats, but as Americans, because we know that:
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