This Moment in Time

When I was a little boy in elementary school, my teachers would often try to motivate my classmates and me by telling us, “If you work hard, you can be anything you set your mind to, including President.” In my small upstate New York community, our classes were integrated and my teachers all White females. They said things like that so that we wouldn’t set our sights too low or limit our dreams in any way.

While my Black classmates and I knew the teachers meant well, the older we got, the more statements like that seemed to ring hollow. We never really believed that we could become President of the United States, or for that matter CEO of a major corporation, editor of a big city newspaper, or even quarterback of a pro football team. In the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s, such opportunities were denied to Black Americans.

But by the late 1970’s, Marlon Briscoe became starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos and to this day still holds club passing records. Around that same time, Robert Maynard became editor of the Oakland Tribune, a Gannett newspaper that he would later purchase from them about four years later. It was just ten years ago that Franklin Raines became CEO of the nation’s 26th largest Fortune 500 company, Fannie Mae.

But President of the United States just seemed beyond anyone’s grasp.

Running for any office is a monumental task requiring a well-built organization, fundraising, communications and political strategies, the ability to tap into hearts and minds and appeal to and share a vision with millions of very diverse American citizens who also have never seen a Black person aspire to such heights.

Barack Obama did all that. He did it better than any other candidate has ever done it. He understood the frustrations of a nation fed up with inept, corrupt and morally bankrupt Bush administration policies, a needless war in Iraq and an economic meltdown. He got them to get involved—especially people under 30—and they organized and mobilized others. His campaign was innovative and dynamic in its use of the Internet to get his message out and generate a broad base of people to donate in small amounts over a long period of time.

Today, Wednesday, November 5, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama, son of a White mother and an African father, a Harvard graduate, lawyer, former community activist and sitting Senator from the State of Illinois, is the President-elect of the United States of America.

It has happened in my lifetime.