I was born in 1956 in Kansas -- the year of Brown vs The (Topeka, Kansas) Board of Education which declared "separate but equal" to be unconstitutional.
In 1961, the same year my first brother was born, the same year that John F. Kennedy took office, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii of a Kansan mother and Kenyan father. His Kansan grandparents were part of "The Greatest Generation" who defeated the forces of Fascism around the world.
In 1964, after JFK's 1963 assassination in Dallas, the Civil Rights Act was passed, finally delivering the legal equality conceptually promised during the Civil War 100 years before.
In 1968, both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The nation convulsed with riots from Harlem to Watts. The darkest days of internal strife of the 20th Century were upon us through Nixon's impeachment.
Does it sound like an exaggeration?
My grandfather sat on his porch swing with a shotgun in his lap through the summer of 1968 in Lawrence, Kansas. On one of those nights, anti-war riots at KU saw the Kansas Union burst into flames. The Governor ordered the National Guard to occupy the city and declared martial law. They arrived at night in jeeps and promptly shot out all the street lights downtown "to prevent snipers."
In Kansas.!
The nation had not seen such internal violence since the Civil War.
Those were the things I personally experienced in my youth. It was then, and up until two years ago still was, far beyond the limits of my imagination that a Black man could be elected President of the United States. The prejudices were too strong. The powerful interests sought only those who would serve them. The conventional wisdom was all against it.
Tonight, a Black man - with his roots in both Kansas and Africa - will be declared President. It is nearly more than I can comprehend. It is my joy than my heart can hold. We've been shouting through the rooftops for an hour!
For it is not the race of the man at all that makes him unique, new, an agent of change -- he ran without personal attacks on his opponent, although his patriotism, religion, ethics, and origin were constantly and harshly attacked by his opponents. He ran without accepting a single dime of PAC money or lobbyist money. And that includes lobbyists for unions as well as corporations. And yet his race is the telling point.
He has the most donations from the most contributors of ANY presidential candidate ever -- over 3.5 million people with an average donation of $86. There has not been a more populist president elected owing fewer debts to powerful corporations and 'king-makers' since Teddy Roosevelt became a 'trust buster.'
The people have spoken. The nation hands power to a new generation and a new kind of candidate without peer for 100 years.
That he is Black gives only physical appearance to the fact that, inside and out, this is a revolutionary candidate who marks a complete and immediate break from the repudiated policies of the last 28 years.
Those who believe the election of Barack Obama is a dark day wear their fear and prejudice on their shirtsleeves. I pity them.
The sun will rise on a new America tomorrow. The PEOPLE of America have spoken truth to power. WE THE PEOPLE of the United States of America have taken our nation back.
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage -- and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961