Forty years ago today, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. The night before he died, the Nobel Peace Prize winner delivered a speech predicting the nation's future and his own demise. Dr. King prophesied that, while he likely would not live to see the day, he had no doubts that all Americans, including blacks, would some day "get to the promised land" of racial equality.
Four decades after Dr. King's death, Barack Obama, the U.S. Senate's only black member, may become America's first black president. This stirs powerful emotions. In a country with a long history of slavery and segregation, what a monumental moment in the American story.
That is why the cover of many major magazines feature variations on the question, "Does Barack Obama's Rise Mean the End of Racism?" The answer is not a short yes or no, but rather a long maybe. Whether racism ends in America depends upon what Americans do with this latest opportunity.
Many say Mr. Obama's success is insignificant. Some even suggest that his popularity with whites is a cynical ploy on their part to end, once and forever, any discussion of current racism. They are wrong. Mr. Obama's multiracial coalition demonstrates an eagerness for dialogue, a desire for change, and a sense of the possibilities of this moment.
Progress and setbacks in racial equality have occurred in a cyclical nature in American history. Three major opportunities for change presented themselves: the founding, Reconstruction, and the civil rights movement. In each, racial progress was made, but setbacks followed due to continuing notions of white superiority. Mr. Obama's achievement, whether or not he wins the presidency in 2008, signifies a fourth era of opportunity.
This is not to suggest that Mr. Obama's success indicates the end of racism. Those who believe that are as wrong as those who say racism today is as bad as it was under Jim Crow. It does, however, indicate an opportunity to take the final step in a long journey. As Mr. Obama recognized in his momentous speech last month on America's racial divide, now is the time for the real conversation to begin.
No doubt, for many Americans the conversation will be uncomfortable. It must, however, take place if we are ever to realize those "self-evident truths" of equality identified more than 200 years ago by the Founding Fathers and reiterated in 1963 in Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
