The Dream - 45 years later
JACK
We are writing this on the morning after Barack Obama has been officially nominated as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States. I have a need to express my feelings for an event that could not be predicted 45 years ago. I say 45 years because this is the 45th anniversary of the famous “I have a Dream” speech. On the television news this morning they showed excerpts of the King speech and they superimposed a photograph of Obama. A picture certainly is worth 1000 words. Seeing both of these historic figures on the screen gave me goose flesh. I remembered, once again, the terrible accounts on the newsreel of the civil rights march, and the admission of James Meredith, a black student, to what had been a totally segregated college.
I could not help but feel a sense of pride, again. (I have felt this way on a number of previous occasions.) My first harsh experience was in 1943 when, as a 20-year-old soldier, I was on a bus in Florida. A black soldier stepped on the bus. No seats were available in the back, so he took a seat in the second row. The bus driver could have been cast as a typical redneck said, “Go to the back of the bus.” The soldier refused, and he was forced to get off the bus. I sat there, frozen. I would like to say that I got off the bus with him, but I didn’t. That tiny incident made me realize, and feel the frustration of the black person in the South. Somehow that scene flashed in front of my eyes as I saw Obama become the Democratic candidate by acclamation, and I realized that this was not a token. It was the march of history. It really does not enter this discussion as to whether he would make a great President or what seems to be the new Republican line, a “rock star” with a gift of gab. We just went through a primary campaign where the two serious candidates for President were a woman and an African-American. Regardless of the outcome, we have now witnessed a major piece of history. I wonder what part of this emotion can be shared across the generations?
HILLARY
I know that the history of our country is one of division amongst races, but it’s not something that I’ve ever overtly experienced. I was in school with people of all races and backgrounds. I have friends of several ethnicities, religions, and orientations. This is not something radical; this is my generation’s experience. There is always talk of racism and anti-Semitism, but those issues are about looks and international politics and something removed from my daily life. Even as a woman, even without a college degree, I have always been able to find a job that supports my lifestyle. So the obstacles to becoming a woman president, or an African-American president always seemed rather superficial and antiquated to me. Why wouldn’t someone of color, or a member of the more prevalent gender, get elected? I only understand the hurdle in terms of history, not in terms of modern life.
JACK
This is a remarkable part of our cross-generational dialogue. Although I was brought up in a poor section, it really was not integrated. All of my schoolmates were white people. When I enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942, the services were totally segregated. In my entire three and a half year experience, I never shared a barracks with a female or any male that was not white. I cannot explain why, but the experiences seemed perfectly natural.
HILLARY
That’s the way it was. The question is, when did you start to see changes, and what did you do to help turning tide?
JACK
The civil rights movement was the trigger. The overwhelming presence of Martin Luther King, for the first time gave me some understanding of my feelings on that bus ride in Florida in 1943. I remember sharply watching other national political conventions and the participants started to appear that were black, and the news cameras, without comment, targeting these faces. Last night I saw delegates to the National Democratic Convention that reflected the remarkable plurality. The theme was “unity,” but I saw it more as the races coming together voluntarily as could only happen in a great democracy. No one ordered it, or said, “let’s have the mixture of so many yellows, so many whites, so many Native Americans, and so many African-Americans.” It was just there, and there was nothing remarkable about it. So what you eased into in the process of growing up in this era, in the United States, for me it was deserving of deep reflection.
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