Well, this painting helped change history....
A painting called 'Hope' wins fans as Barack Obama's inspiration November 28, 2008
It's a bit off the beaten tourist track, and anyone looking for it may find a street map useful.
Yet in the past two weeks, this cozy little art gallery nestled in central London has attracted a growing trickle of visitors in search – literally – of hope.
In this case it takes the form of a painting which may have helped inspire Barack Obama.
Entitled "Hope," the canvas hanging inside London's Guildhall Art Gallery as part of an exhibition by Victorian painter George Frederic Watts might appear unremarkable to some.
In drab browns and grays on a blue background, it depicts a young blindfolded woman strumming on the last unbroken string of a harp, her ear to the instrument.
Obama's controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright invoked the image as a symbol of inspiration during a sermon in Chicago 20 years ago.
The harpist, he preached, "is sitting there in rags ... her clothes are tattered as though she had been a victim of Hiroshima…
the woman had the audacity to hope."
The imagery stayed with Obama. The young politician adapted that phrase in his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention – which marked his breakthrough onto the national stage – and again in 2006 as the title of his second book.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2008/1128/p04s02-woeu.html I think, to a lot of people, "Hope" meant being victorious on election day. After that goal was achieved, there was no longer a reason to hope. It was like Christmas right? The present had arrived and things were magically going to be perfect. .... But that's not what hope is really about ... hope is about HOLDING ON in the face of adversity .... about never giving up .... about singing the song, even when you only have one string to accompany you.
You know, this country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.
Instead, it is that American spirit, that American promise, that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend. That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night and a promise that you make to yours, a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west, a promise that led workers to picket lines and women to reach for the ballot.
And it is that promise that, 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.
The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustrations of so many dreams deferred.
But what the people heard instead -- people of every creed and color, from every walk of life -- is that, in America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one.
"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."
America, we cannot turn back... not with so much work to be done; not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild, and farms to save; not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone.
At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise, that American promise, and in the words of scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.
Barack Obama - 8/28/08
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