Sooner Be Blue

The idea that in America anyone can grow up to be President is so basic to our national mythology, but we all knew it was just that...a myth. Until now.

Whether you’re Democrat or Republican, you can’t help but be proud of how far our young country has come, though I'm trying not to dwell on how long it has taken. With one of the highest voter turnouts on record, we are now witnessing one of the most historic events of our lifetime.

I can't help being amazed that we have gone from the horrors of Bloody Sunday on that bridge in Selma, Alabama - when state troopers clubbed peaceful black marchers trying to get the right to vote - to inaugurating a black president in one generation. Only in America can someone like Barack Obama become President of the United States.

Yes, I'm very proud to be an American today.

Obama rarely spoke of race during his campaign...but as he prepares for his swearing-in, his inaugural is shaping up as a watershed event in our nation’s racial history — a turning point of the long struggle for civil rights.

I keep thinking about the framers of our Constitution and how hard they worked on it until it was ready for adoption. I wonder what they would think about today. Because in the original US Constitution, adopted in 1787, each black slave living in America was regarded as only a partial human being, counted as three-fifths of a person. It took us 78 years to pass the Thirteenth Amendment which gave them the missing two-fifths.

A poignant moment will be when the first black president is sworn in standing on the same Capitol steps that were built by slaves. Slave labor was used in every phase of the construction of the White House and the Capitol...from baking bricks to quarrying Virginia limestone to working on interior features. President Obama will hold his office inside a building that was built by slaves.

You can read about it here:

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090119/LIFESTYLE06/901190304

Another poignant moment will be when Barack Obama is sworn in using a Bible that was used by Abraham Lincoln in his Inauguration...the martyred president who fought a Civil War to end slavery.

And as Obama stands there he will be able to gaze down at the National Mall where Martin Luther King Jr. inspired the civil-rights movement with his 1963 "I Have A Dream" speech...the same National Mall that was once the site of slave markets....where slaves were held in pens, ready for auction.

It's like American history has come full circle, today the color of Obama's skin will speak loud as a symbol of the progress that we've made as a country when you remember that segregation was still legal in some states less than 50 years ago.

The power of the moment and Obama's success will help alleviate the long and painful racial history of America's past...for this is a new day, a different America. A day that I couldn't be more proud to be American.

That said, I don't expect President Obama to be perfect. Will he make mistakes? Of course, he will. I don't expect him to carry my torch, and I'm sure I'll be very unhappy with him at times, but I have faith that finally we'll have someone in the Oval Office capable of thoughtful policy-making...someone who'll bring basic competence and honesty back to government.

Hope is what we need, as well as faith, in our new President, our country and ourselves. This historic occasion further stamps America as one of the world's great democracies.

So let's be light of heart and celebrate this happy new day in our nation's history, because the real work of the new president will begin tomorrow...and he will need our help.