"For the first time in my adult life I'm proud of my country...."Although she expressed herself inartfully, I knew right away what she was feeling -- it's exactly how I'll feel tomorrow at noon, when Barack Obama takes the Oath of Office to become the 44th President of the United States.
I've never been prouder to be an American.
It took far too long for us to get to this day, but here we are. As a nation of, by and for The People, here we are.
In 1963, I was in first grade, a white kid in an all-white school in an all-white district in rural Ohio. I can still hear the echoes of racist ignorance that ran through that time and place.
That was the year that Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and told us of his vision:
"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'"When Dr. King was assassinated five years later, I heard about it on my small transistor radio. I ran downstairs to break the news to my parents, saddened by the senseless tragedy. They were surprisingly unmoved, save their well-founded concern that the shooting might spark rioting.
Segregation, discrimination and good-old-boy humor never did sit well with me, even when I was an impressionable kid. I had every opportunity to be blinded by bigotry, but it didn't happen. I don't know why, but it didn't.
As I grew older, I kept my own counsel and found my own way. I learned that ignorance, like righteousness, isn't the province of one or another race. I walked through life and the world seeking the content of character -- both others' and my own.
Admittedly, my perspective on the last 52 years can't compare to that of black Americans who felt the lash of racist hatred. I won't presume to know what it's like to be denied a job, barred from a voting booth or lodged in a fleabag motel while the white players on my team slept at The Ritz -- never mind enduring beatings (and worse) simply for trying to exercise the same unalienable rights enjoyed by white Americans.As I'm not a black American, then, I can't fully embrace the emotional significance of January 20th, 2009. But as an independent American -- one who's watched institutional racism driven into full retreat, if not unconditional surrender, and lived to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama, a black man, as my nation's President -- I can say this:
I've never been prouder to be an American.
