MLK to Barack Obama: A Boomer Remembers

In the 2008 Presidential election, my two sons, in their early 30’s, were proud to vote for Barack Obama.  But while they appreciated the significance of voting for the first African-American President, they did not share the same stunned amazement as their mother.  How could they?  They never sat in front of a black and white television watching angy young men drag a firehouse close enough to spray and knock down proud Negro men as they marched down the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. 

My sons never sat in front of the television while Martin Lurther King, Jr. intoned his dream for a country where his children and white children would play and work together.   At my grandson’s birthday party, neither my son nor his wife thought anything about the fact that some of my grandson’s guests were African-American, Indian-American, Chinese-American.  It didn’t matter to them.  My grandsons do not care about the color of their playmates’ skin.  They just know who is fun. 

The ghosts of Martin Luther King, Jr. and slain civil rights workers stand over us now.  The best part of post-election day were interviews with children of various minorities who told reporters, “Now we know we can be anything we want to be.”  Racism certainly is not dead; but racism is dying.  And maybe someday my great grandchildren will not even know that Election Day 2008 really was a big deal.