Imagine all the People

Tuesday, November 4, 2008, will forever be remembered.

Heartbroken McCain supporters screamed and booed as McCain conceded to a crowd of supporters in Phoenix, Arizona. “Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country,” said McCain.

Soon after, Obama spoke in Chicago, Illinois. The jubilant crowd burst into spontaneous cries of “Yes we Can!” Never have so many tears of joy been shed in one place.

Yet, despite the overwhelming happiness Obama must have felt, he remained serious and almost stern as he spoke of the future. “Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or save enough for their child's college education. There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair. The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there.”

Obama’s words echo the words spoken by Martin Luther King Junior, on the eve of his assassination. “And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

Neither Barack Obama nor Martin Luther King Junior were referring to their own mortality when they spoke those words. They simply meant that the road ahead of us is long, and that we, as a people, have far to go before we can achieve our dreams. It may not happen in our lifetime. It may not happen in the lifetime of our children, or our grandchildren. But it will happen. Things will get better.

A Crowd Celebrates Outside the White House at 3 A.M.