Much has been made over the past year about Obama's appeal to those under 30 years old. How he represents their generation. How he has a clear understanding of the future. Of their world.
As a 50-year old man, I'm perfectly good with that. I know that feeling. How the failures of the past are now their's to inherit. How it's now time to stand up and take the load off the shoulders of those have carried it for so long.
However, there is a part of what's happening now -- in 2008 -- that those under 30 will never fully appreciate. And that is why we in our 50s and older are emotionally drained by what we're witnessing. Why the tears fall so easily. 1968.
The images of the 60s are etched in our memory. The firehoses and police dogs. A defiant Rosa Parks sitting on the bus. Martin Luther King leading the Selma March. 200,000 in front of the Lincoln Memorial hearing Martin Luther King's stirring "I Have a Dream" speech.
Robert Kennedy announcing to a stunned crowd who had come to watch him speak that Martin Luther King had been shot and killed. The "oh no"s that followed. The look on Bobby's face.
The fear that with MLK's assassination that the South would erupt in violence. A civil war -- a race war -- was looming.
Then two months later, Bobby too. Beautiful Bobby. The panic and chaos that followed. Young women falling to their knees in grief. The tears on Rosy Grier's face. Bobby's dying head cradled in a woman's lap.
The hope of a generation spilt like the blood on the balcony of the Lorranie Hotel in Memphis, and on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in LA. The helplessness and despair and the anger that rocked the Chicago Convention in August, 1968. The knife to the heart when Nixon won in November.
Now today, Americans will look down on their ballots and see the name of a young black man next to a white war hero, and millions of white people -- in Mississippi and in Michigan, in Kentucky and in Kansas, in West Virginia and in Wyoming, in Alabama and in Alaska -- will mark the box next to that young black man. A man not judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.
Tonight could be a transformative night. A "where were you when" night. The stars are aligned. A speech will be given that will forever be a part of American history. The generation that was alive to witness 1968 will be in tears. At long last, our battle has been won. A dream realized.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Sweet jesus, that day has come.