“If someone on this bridge had told me fifty years ago that I would be standing here today introducing the first African American president, I would have told them they were crazy, that they had lost their mind.”
With those words, Representative John Lewis introduced President Obama to the crowd gathered at the Edward Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on Saturday, the 50th Anniversary of that historic march.
When the President stepped forward the two men hugged, and it was all I could do to hold back tears. In that moment I realized again for the first time what Barack Obama’s election means to all black Americans.
It means Bloody Sunday was worth it…enduring all the indignities, beatings, jailings, and deaths were worth it…refusing to accept second class citizenship that kept them from voting was worth it.
The Obama Presidency is the living symbol of a movement, of everything the black community has fought for and still is fighting for.
That fact – that this presidency is the symbol of the civil rights struggle – is why disrespect for the President is so wounding, so horrific in the pain it inflicts upon every African American.
Every time this President is disrespected it is a public declaration that the civil rights movement didn’t matter, that John Lewis and others who were beaten for walking across a bridge didn’t matter, that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination didn’t matter, that the civil rights laws fought for and passed didn’t matter, that giving voting rights to every American didn’t matter.
This is what those who are Obama haters (and I use those words intentionally) don’t get. When they show disrespect for this President, they are showing disrespect for everything this presidency symbolizes.
I am not talking about political differences or disagreements over policies. I am talking about the concerted and persistent effort to question the legitimacy of Barack Obama being President.
From the moment Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina yelled “You lie” during the 2009 State of the Union Address to Netanyahu’s speech last week to threatening to shut down the government at the drop of a hat to every derogatory word uttered that has been directed at the President as a person, all black Americans and all they have fought for have been disrespected.
Why has this been happening? We all know the reason – the evil of racism that still resides in so many people. The President is not a morally bad person. He doesn’t demean his opponents. He doesn’t question their citizenship, their love for America, or their patriotism. But that is what he has endured for the last six years, for no reason other than the color of his skin.
This is not “playing the race card.” It is simply telling the truth.
Racism exists in our politics today as it has from the founding of the nation. We see in it not only in the way the President is treated. We see it in the fact that 38 states have moved to make voting more difficult…in the assumption white people make that most welfare recipients are black…in the subtle ways white commentators suggest most black men don’t want to work…in the racist comments politicians make that have to be walked back.
The fact is unassailable. Millions of Americans still do not believe all people have been created equal or that race should not influence how anyone is treated.
I think that is why when the President and Congressman Lewis hugged one another it released such pent up emotions in me. I was at once moved by what our nation has truly accomplished and at the same time overwhelmed by a deep sadness because there are still so many people trying to tear it all down.
But the President was right. We don’t long for the past, as his opponents do. We look to the future, which is why I am still willing to cling to the hope that the prophet Isaiah got it right, and one day justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
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