Barack Obama will make his historic acceptance speech tonight against the backdrop of history: it was 45 years ago today that Dr. Martin Luther King publicly dreamed of a day when someone like Barack could stand at the precipice of becoming president of the United States. It's a heavy burden for Obama to bear, and he's doing it not just in front of 75,000 people at Mile High Stadium (sorry, like any true Bronco fan, I just can't call it Invesco Field...) but before the world.
 Best of luck tonight, Barack.
The WaPo has advance info on the speech:
Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, is scheduled to address as many as 80,000 people in Denver's Invesco Field at Mile High football stadium and millions of television viewers starting at about 8 p.m. Mountain time (10 p.m. EST). In the speech, which caps the four-day Democratic National Convention and opens Obama's campaign for the White House as his party's nominee, Obama will offer "a fundamentally new direction to get America back on track, both here and around the world," said David Plouffe, his campaign manager. Appearing on morning television talk shows, Plouffe said Obama would explain his plans for dealing with the economy, health care and education, as well as international challenges such as threats to the United States and strained relations with other countries.
Politico on the significance for African-Americans (by the way, my pal Sonja ran into Al Sharpton at the Pepsi Center yesterday. Needless to say, he has no role this year...) 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.
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. ... and the reactions of black officials: 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.”
Meanwhile, damn the TV pundits, Biden's getting great reviews for his speech yesterday (including from me.) His everyman thing is real, and people are talking.
| Labels: 2008 election, American history, Barack Obama, Democratic convention, Denver convention, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. |
