Wednesday, November 5, 2008

O! What a morning!

I was not going to join the chorus of folks writing about the election until I read this post in reaction to the election of Barack Obama on the Denver Post web site, “this is a very sad day in the history of America[.]”

Let’s really consider this.

The year my wife was born, Brown v. Board of Education was decided.

The year before I was born, President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne into Little Rock so that African American children could safely go to desegregated schools.

When I was three, buses carrying freedom riders were firebombed in Alabama.

When I was 5, Martin Luther King gave his "I have a dream" speech.

It was not until I was 7 that the University of Mississippi admitted its first African American students.

When I was 8 the authorities in Birmingham were turning fire hoses on peaceful marchers. The KKK murdered 3 young men during the Freedom Summer in Mississippi.

When I was 10, Dr. King was murdered.

Some of my earliest memories are of watching National Guard troops prepare for going to Newark, NJ to deal with race riots.

When I was a sophomore in High School, a white man was photographed using an American flag as a spear on a black man in the violence associated with bussing in Boston. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soiling_of_Old_Glory

I did not have any black friends until I was in college.

Just 10 years ago, black friends attempting to visit me at my home were harassed by the Delmar NY police department. These friends happened to be NY state troopers and a NY corrections officer.

Now a man who happens to be black has been elected President of the United States based on the quality of his character.

And yet, this poster said "this is a very sad day in the history of America"?

This is indeed a great day for America. This is the day when we finally fulfilled our promise. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."

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