The Great Black Hope

Every year the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday prompts me to think about where the United States stands along its evolutionary path, not only in regard to race relations, but also in measurements of economic and social justice, militarism and our foreign relations. Though Dr. King is best and rightly remembered for his civil rights work, he gave considerable thought and attention to these other matters.

This MLK holiday is obviously different than any that has come before. Tomorrow at noon eastern time, Barack Obama will recite the oath of office and become the first African-American to hold the highest elected office in the land. Given the African-American experience in this country, the legacy of slave chains, codified status as three-fifths a human being, Jim Crow, lynching’s, official and de facto segregation, terrorism and intimidation, murder and oppression, down the bones and down the years, the inauguration of Barack Obama marks more than the breaking of a racial barrier.

America is growing up and finally reaching for its promise.

An intelligent, articulate black man is poised to lead the United States and, in many respects, the world, out of a pit dug by a president and vice-president who disdained the rule of law and every measure of justice that Dr. King struggled for during his short, purposeful life. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney condoned injustice and advanced inequality in a manner unprecedented in my lifetime, and maybe in our history as a nation. Bush and Cheney played to our fears and baser instincts, governed for the few rather than the many, made a mockery of what it means to be an American, and demeaned us in the eyes of the world.

Barack Obama is a man, not a savior, and while our hopes for his presidency soar we must temper our expectations. Our debased politics, grotesquely unequal economy, precarious environmental position, and obsessive focus on material gain cannot be solved in six months, a year, even four years. We’re in very deep waters and our ship of state is listing to one side. Even with a man of Barack Obama’s skill and character at the helm, we may sink.

Dr. King often said that resilience and fortitude were traits inculcated in black Americans by their direct experience in the crucible of the American contradiction. All Americans need that kind of transcendent resilience and fortitude now, for some of the most difficult challenges we’ve ever faced lie on the other side of tomorrow’s festivities. The stakes are enormous; the consequences of inaction or timid half-measures will be severe; no American should be immune or exempted from some form of sacrifice.

The dominant narrative of the past quarter century held that Americans rose or fell individually. This proved an illusion as damning as it is false. Dr. King knew it in his time; Barack Obama knows it in ours.