We have all just become a part of history. Congratulations!
Each of us can say to future generations: “I was there when the United States elected its first African-American president. I saw it happen. I participated in making history.” Whether you love Obama, or whether hate Obama, this is a great day in America.
We have come so very far from the horrific pre-Civil-War days of slavery.
“Simon Legree” and “Uncle Tom” in a scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852),
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous abolitionist novel.
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We have come so very far from era when parades of Klansmen
marched on Washington.
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Thousands of Klan members march on Washington, D.C. in the 1920s,
the decade of peak power for the KKK in America.
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We have come so very far from the violent and divisive years of the Civil Rights Movement, when the crosses of the KKK burned brightly across the South. When Blacks were not even allowed to vote!
Personally, I never thought I’d live to see the day when an African-American would be elected president, especially after the extensive research I had done more than ten years ago on racism in America—racism that even permeated some segments of the “Christian” community, which have been present since the 1920s.
Aug. 4, 1964 The bodies of three civil rights workers—two white, one black—are found in an earthen dam, six weeks into a federal investigation backed by President Johnson. James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had been working to register black voters in Mississippi, and, on June 21, had gone to investigate the burning of a black church.
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Ku Klux Klan members share a stage, possibly in Portland, Oregon, with members of the Royal Riders of the Red Robe, a Klan auxiliary for foreign-born white Protestants, circa 1922. Protestantism played a strong role in the KKK philosophy of “100 percent American.”OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY, #ORHI 51017.
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