The Preacher and the Politician: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and Race in America

“To Choose Our Better History”?: Epilogue

Epilogue OnJanuary20,2009,BarackH.Obamawassworninasthefortyfourth president of the United States. A million or so people, from throughout the United States and abroad, crammed onto the Washington Mall to glimpse history in the making: the inauguration of the first African American president of the United States. Television and newspaper journalists reported seeing tears of joy and hearing whoops of excitement from members of the massive crowd as Obama delivered his inaugural speech.1 For a generation of African Americans who had struggled for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, Obama’s inauguration was particularly special. To this generation of Americans, many now in their sixties and seventies, Obama’s presidency represented a high point in black America’s historical struggle to transform America’s ideals of equality and social justice into a reality.2 In addressing the million or so people on the Washington Mall, Obama captured the hopes of generations past when he urged Americans “to choose our better history.”3 Obama’s words echoed Abraham Lincoln’s call for Americans to live according to “the better angels of our nature.”4 Indeed , the link between Lincoln and Obama was palpable in the “To Choose Our Better History”? 100 “To Choose Our Better History”? days leading up to the inauguration. Obama, for example, chose to arrive in the capital by retracing portions of Lincoln’s train journey from Illinois to Washington, D.C. (although Obama, unlike Lincoln, did not have to arrive in secret for fear of being assassinated by southern extremists). Obama also used Lincoln ’s Bible at the swearing-in ceremony; and he repeated the inaccurate claim that Lincoln freed the slaves (something that was achieved in December 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution), by implication linking himself to the great white emancipator of the Civil War era.5 Historical inaccuracies aside, the Lincoln-Obama imagery was designed to unite Americans; just as Lincoln contributed to the downfall of racial slavery and reunited the South with the North, so Obama is seen by millions of Americans as the best hope of restoring cohesion to a nation that is divided over the “war on terror,” wracked by economic uncertainty, and anxious about racial and ethnic issues such as immigration restriction, the ongoing fallout from Hurricane Katrina, and urban poverty. For young Americans (eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds), Obama embodies a “postracial” departure from America’s sordid political and racial past. For the civil rights generation, Obama puts a modern spin on the liberal reform for which thousands marched, sat in, and protested in the 1950s and 1960s. Thus, to black Americans who live with the memories of the civil rights movement, Obama’s presidency represents less a “postracial” departure from America’s racial history than a new phase in the ongoing struggle to transform the ideals of the Founders into a reality for all. Americans will no doubt continue to debate the meaning of Obama’s presidency, but if his election says anything about the United States, it is that the republic is not a white nation, but a multiracial society. While Obama’s inaugural address drew on some powerful historical imagery, his caution as a politician, his studied understanding of America’s racial history, and his cautious approach to the challenges facing the United States over the next four years Epilogue 101 led him to celebrate American idealism in measured tones. In fact, Obama’s address reflected both his skill as a politician and his understanding of the complexities of history; the speech made it clear that faith in America’s founding ideals must unite Americans, while at the same time recognizing the importance of history’s lessons in guiding America’s future. As Obama instructed the Inauguration Day crowds: We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus , and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth. And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself.6 One could, if one wanted to, read into these words the “postracial ” idealism that Americans still find hard to adequately articulate . We read Obama’s...