Michael Harrington, the late author of The Other America, wrote that one of his greatest sorrows was riding on the train that brought Robert Kennedy's body back to Washington and seeing the people who lined the tracks as the train passed. They were black and white and represented the electoral coalition that might have been. Here are some pictures from the windows of the RFK funeral train:
Now here are some photos from the windows of Barack Obama inaugural train:
Almost forty-one years later, the same coalition is reborn and lines the tracks again in rejoicing instead of grief. Robert Kennedy is long dead, but maybe the truth of his words lives on: "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation... It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped."