For African Americans, the election of Barack Obama was part triumph, part miracle.
The triumph was the culmination of more than a
half-century of struggle to gain access to the ballot and create
political space within the once-hostile Democratic Party for a mobilized
Black electorate. The miracle was that the son of an African father and
white American mother, virtually unknown just four years before and
carrying a name primed to trigger the Islamophobia and xenophobia of
fellow Americans like none in our history, actually became the 44th
president of the United States. The end of that triumphant, miraculous
era means several things to Black Americans.
It means that Black Americans will no longer be
able to take for granted that a young and elegant, sophisticated and
unapologetically Black family resides, presides and represents this
country from the secular sanctuary of the White House; though never
again can it be denied that they can and did. For many Black Americans,
the mourning has already begun.
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