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Tue. Jan 20, 2009

Inaugurating Hope

Yesterday, CNN showed Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech in its entirety. I was a month shy of 5 years old on the day of the speech, August 28, 1963. And the changes in this country with regards to race have been quite remarkable during my lifetime.

A CNN poll “found 69 percent of blacks said King’s vision has been fulfilled in the more than 45 years since his 1963 ‘I have a dream’ speech — roughly double the 34 percent who agreed with that assessment in a similar poll taken last March.” But the dream was about more than one man in one job.

King said, “Let freedom reign from the top of Stone Mountain…“, referring to a place historically tied to the KKK. That phrase really jumped out at me yesterday. Because today, Stone Mountain is nearly the center of a suburban area filled with middle to upper-class African American families.

King gave his speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, at the west end of the The National Mall. 45 years later, an African American will be giving an inaugural address at the east end of that Mall, from the steps of the Capitol. About 250,000 saw King speak; the whole world will be watching Obama. The history and symbolism is powerful, and impossible to ignore.

But I think there’s a lot more going on than just the inauguration of the first African American President. It’s reminiscent of Reagan’s arrival, and “Morning in America.” It’s like we’re inaugurating hope.

I’ve read some complaining that Obama is getting more favorable treatment from the press than Bush did in 2000. I imagine so, given the fractious manner the 2000 election ended. But it appears to me that Obama is getting more favorable treatment from the American People than Bush did in 2000 … or any other President in my adult lifetime, for that matter.

Can anyone recall estimates of a million citizens (or more) turning out for a very cold Inauguration Day, or people lining the train tracks to see the car carrying the incoming President? Heck, people are going to gather and stand in the cold in Atlanta’s Centennial Park to watch the inauguration on big TV screens. To be a piece of history, once removed.

The change that is coming is stark, but welcome, and the contrast is striking.

We’ve been lulled into a stupor by many months (if not years) of lame duck absentee “leadership.” And we are being awakened by someone who is clearly not interested in leading 50.1% of the country. Someone who knows how to use what Teddy Roosevelt called the “bully pulpit.” Indeed, he has already shown as much during the transition, by moving from winning 53% of the vote to winning the approval of more than 80% of Americans … before he’s even sworn in. Someone who listens. Someone who not only speaks in complete sentences, but writes books. Someone who was a professor of Constitutional law, and therefore might be capable of untangling the web woven by those who’ve shown less respect for that document.

Someone we can believe in, for at least a little while. In troubled times, hope is a scarce commodity.

Obama brings it with his every word.