In 1961, Robert F. Kennedy predicted that the country could elect a black president in the next 40 years. That’s how fast race relations were changing in America, said the attorney general at the time.
Now, 47 years later, Barack Obama stands at the precipice of fulfilling Kennedy’s forecast. On Thursday, he’ll become the first minority to win the presidential nomination, achieving what many thought was impossible given our national obsession with race.
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To call this a historic moment feels like understatement. Obama’s nomination represents a sea change, a psychological shift in a country that still struggles with the painful and complicated legacy of slavery.
Fifty-five years ago, whites and blacks learned in separate schools, ate at separate lunch counters and sat in different parts of the bus. Forty-one years ago, Massachusetts elected the first black man to the Senate. Just 18 years ago, Virginia welcomed the first black governor.
And on Thursday, a black man will step up to the podium and accept the nomination of a party that only 44 years ago debated whether to seat black delegates from Mississippi at the 1964 convention.
The timing is particularly acute: Obama’s acceptance speech falls on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” address.
Thursday’s singular, symbolic moment both thrills and worries African-American leaders, many of whom never expected to see a black president in their lifetime. Obama’s success exposes the slow shift away from the political leadership of civil rights heroes to those who have come of age in a not yet post-racial, but decidedly mixed-racial, world.
Obama is the crown prince of a new generation of elected black leaders who never drank from a segregated water fountain. They attended the best universities, excelled professionally and came of age with awareness of the world’s diversity. These leaders are part of the civil rights advocacy community but are not owned by it. In public office, they strive to use their identity to build diverse coalitions that stretch across both racial and ideological lines.
Politico talked to dozens of black leaders from across the country, asking them to assess the impact of the Obama nomination and what it says about the state of race in America today.
The panel had as many opinions as Politico had questions. But almost everyone could agree on at least one word, an expression they all believed King would have used to describe Obama’s nomination: “Hallelujah.”
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.)
“A few days ago, I was speaking to a group, and one young lady asked me, ‘What do you think Dr. King would say about Barack Obama’s nomination?’ I said, ‘Young lady, I don’t know, but I have a feeling he would look down and say, ‘Hallelujah.’”
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.)
“I think my most emotional moment came the night of South Dakota and Montana. ... I was thinking about all those times I was telling people, ‘Be what you want to be when you grow up’ and, hell, I didn’t believe it. ... It’s a big moment and, with these sorts of things, you usually don’t expect to see the day.”