<snips>
On Capitol Hill, as across the country Wednesday, African-Americans reflected on Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s historic rise as the first black presidential nominee to lead a major political party. They noted that only a few decades ago, African-Americans were fighting across large swaths of the South for basic human rights, hardly pondering the possibility that one of them might soon lead the country.
Many black lawmakers said they were elated at Obama’s victory.
Many said they never thought such a day would come.
Many cried.
“If someone had told me this would be happening now, I would have told them they were crazy, out of their mind, they didn’t know what they were talking about,” said
Lewis, who was president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when he stood with King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. “I just wish the others were around to see this day. ... To the people who were beaten, put in jail, were asked questions they could never answer to register to vote, it’s amazing.”
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who grew up in segregated South Carolina and rose to the majority whip position last year, said he was so overcome with emotion Tuesday night that he left a victory party and had to watch Obama’s speech alone.
“I thought this day would come, but I didn’t think I’d live to see it,” Clyburn said. “I got home, and I was so emotional I couldn’t feel myself. I was numb.”
He poured himself a Jack Daniels and Diet Coke and watched Obama speak.
.........
Throughout the day Wednesday, African-Americans offered up historical yardsticks to measure what is happening now: 40 years since King’s assassination; 43 years since the passage of the Voting Rights Act; 60 years since the late Sen. Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party over the issue of race, which began the Democrats’ transformation from the party of Jim Crow to the party of Barack Obama.
........
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), son of the one-time presidential contender, said Obama’s victory overwhelmed him.
“I cried all night. I’m going to be crying for the next four years,” he said. “What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history. ... The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.”
Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) couldn’t stop laughing Wednesday morning, conceding that he was giddy over Obama’s victory.
“It’s a good day in America,” he proclaimed.
Clay recalled turning to his father at the breakfast table several months ago and asking whether the elder Clay, himself a former congressman, had ever thought he would see the day when an African-American received the nomination of a major political party.
“He just straight-out said no,” Clay said, surmising that the same conversation must now be playing out at breakfast tables across the country.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=55D13D94-3048-5C12-00E851454E822F1E
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
