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The political movement in Black America
Ebony, Nov, 2005 by Barack Obama
A few years ago, Vernon Jordan told a graduating class that, "You are where you are today because you stand on somebody's shoulders ... and if you stand on the shoulders of others, you have a reciprocal responsibility to live your life so that others may stand on yours."
Today, as we reflect on 60 years of African-Americans in politics, it's a time to be grateful for all those shoulders that have supported our progress--as names like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, Dorothy Height and Myrlie Evers-Williams, John Lewis and the Rev. Jesse Jackson cross our minds.
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But it's also a time to look toward the next 60 years and ask ourselves, "What can we do to make future generations proud? How will we live our lives so that our children and their children will be able to stand on our shoulders and celebrate the progress we made possible?"
For me, some of these answers were inspired by a trip I took to Atlanta a few months ago, where I had the honor to speak at John Lewis' 65th birthday celebration. Many heroes of Black politics and luminaries of the Civil Rights Movement were there, and as I stood up there next to John Lewis, I thought to myself that never in a million years would I have guessed that I'd be serving in Congress with this hero to so many.
And then I thought, there was once a time when John Lewis might never have guessed that he'd be serving in Congress. And there was a time not long before that when people might never have guessed that someday, Black folks would be able to go to the polls, pick up a ballot, make their voice heard, and elect that Congress.
But we can, and many of us are serving today, because people like John Lewis believed. Because people feared nothing and risked everything for those beliefs. Because they saw injustice and endured pain in order to right what was wrong. We're serving because of them, and to them we owe the deepest gratitude.
The road we have taken to this point has not been easy. But then again, the road to change never is.
Back in Illinois, I used to teach Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School. One of the courses I taught was about race and law, and in that class, we chronicled the history of race in America and people's struggle to achieve freedom in the courts and on the streets. And oftentimes my students would come up to me and say things like, "Boy, I wish I could've been around at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, because everything seemed so clear at the time. And while there may have been room for debate on some issues, the need for the Movement was never in doubt, and you didn't have the ambiguities you have today."
But of course, I reminded them that it wasn't very easy at all. That the moral certainties we now take for granted--that separate can never be equal, that the blessings of liberty enshrined in our Constitution belong to all of us, that our children should be able to go to school together and play together and grow up together--were anything but certain in 1965. To get to where we are today, it took struggle and sacrifice, discipline and tremendous faith. It took brave souls who were willing to speak out and stand up and cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge to face row after row of armed state troopers because they knew that freedom was waiting on the other side.
Above all, the progress we celebrate today took great courage. A courage that says change is never easy, but always possible. That it comes not from violence or militancy or the kind of politics that pits us against one another and plays on our worst fears; but from a strong message of hope, and from ordinary people who are willing to carry that message to every corner of our country.
This is our legacy. It is a legacy that includes not only 60 years of African-American politics, but generations of Americans from all backgrounds who have sacrificed and struggled for this country we love.
We must build on this legacy today. When we see injustice, we must speak. When we see suffering, we must reach out. When we see great challenges, we must stand up and meet them head on.
As always, this will not be easy. But when it gets hard, we can sustain ourselves with the hope that comes from the memories of those who have gone before us and succeeded.
For me, this kind of hope often comes from a memory of a person I met during [my senatorial] campaign. At a rally during the last few days before the election, a woman came to shake my hand and to take a photograph with me. She was a wonderful woman, and the moment was unexceptional except for one thing: Marguerite Lewis was born in 1899.
Since that day, I've had the occasion to imagine how extraordinary this woman's life has been. As an African-American woman born in Louisiana, she grew up in a time when lynchings were commonplace; a time when the South was gripped by Jim Crow; a time when African-Americans and women could not vote.
I've imagined her life spanning three centuries--she lived to see World War I, she lived to see the Great Depression, she lived to see World War II, and she lived to see her brothers and uncles and nephews and cousins coming home from those wars and still sitting in the back of a bus.
