Audacious Hope

No matter what partisan perspective you hold, Barack Obama's victory in the long slog of the Democratic Party's nominating process must be a sign of remarkable hope for this country. For those of us who are roughly contemporaries of Sen. Obama, we can look back at coming of age during the midst of the Civil Rights era and feel viscerally just how far this nation has traveled during our lifetimes as we collectively try to live out the creed that all of us are created equal. For those of us who are Southerners, who were born into the Jim Crow South in places where black folks registered to vote at risk to their lives, the nomination of Sen. Obama is part of the fulfillment of the truly audacious hope that the Civil Rights Movement embodied.
None of that is to say that he is anything like a perfect vessel for carrying forth such hope. Indeed, no one is. Nevertheless, the entire nominating process -- the long, long, long, slow march ... -- has been itself an imperfect vessel for carrying forth the audacious hope that all of us, black folks and white folks, men and women, are created equal. Given time, we might come closer to embodying that hope as a people. As we do, this particular season will be seen always as a milestone along the way.