Jill Porter: A reminder of how far we've come, and of what lies ahead
I WENT to the most obvious place yesterday to celebrate the Democratic Party's epic nomination of Barack Obama: the African American Museum at 7th and Arch streets.
I WENT to the most obvious
place yesterday to celebrate the Democratic Party's epic nomination of Barack Obama: the African American Museum at 7th and Arch streets.
Where else to honor the momentous event that marks the end of this country's racial past?
It was early and no other visitors had yet arrived. I had the place to myself.
Part of the permanent timeline etched on the museum's partition walls says: "Dr. Martin Luther King assassinated 1968. Harold Washington elected Mayor of Chicago 1983."
I imagined the thrilling inscription that could bring the information full circle:
"Barack Obama elected president of the United States of America 2008."
It's almost impossible to grasp, this culmination of King's dream 45 years after he evoked it.
Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who also spoke at the Lincoln Memorial that day with King, was at the Denver convention to witness the swing of the pendulum propelled by King's momentum.
"We've had disappointments since then, but if someone told me I would be here. . ." he told the New York Times, wordlessly shaking his head in awe.
I was a supporter of Hillary
Clinton, and felt cheated all over again witnessing her magnificent speech on Tuesday night.
But no one who's ever lamented racial injustice could be unmoved by the significance of Obama's ascent.
And, it goes without saying, no one who shares Clinton's values could vote for anyone but him in November.
But the perspective from 7th and Arch streets is also a sobering one.
Across the street from the museum is the Federal Detention Center.
Sitting cross-legged outside the prison yesterday morning was a homeless man, rubbing his legs in an obsessive circular motion, a whitewash of dirt visible on his dark clothes.
It seemed a poignant juxtaposition to me.
Poverty, homelessness and prisons occupied primarily by minorities are scourges wrought by centuries of discrimination and oppression.
The corner of 7th and Arch is also within sight of City Hall, which occupies the same nexus between the past and future of racial equality, and bespeaks both progress and failure.
Michael Nutter presides inside Billy Penn's building - a brilliant reformer who triumphed over four other candidates in a mayoral campaign in which race was a nonissue.
But Billy Penn also looks out over a city in which one out of four people, mostly minorities, lives in poverty; in which most of the failing schools are those that educate African-American children.
He looks out over neighborhoods decimated by fleeing middle-class residents, neighborhoods cannibalized by drugs and alcohol, the anesthetics of hopelessness.
I came to 7th and Arch to revel in Obama's nomination, but find myself feeling pensive instead.
This isn't about being negative in an otherwise joyous moment.
It's about looking beyond symbolism and rhetoric to the serious work ahead - the work that starts with defeating John McCain.
It's about celebrating how far we've come, and recognizing how much further we have to go.
Last night, there was a watch party scheduled at the African American Museum, the front- desk attendant told me - where celebrants could watch on video as Barack Obama accepted his place in history as the man helping make a famously elusive dream come true.
Clearly, in many ways, we have overcome the past.
Now, we have to overturn the damage it has wrought. *
E-mail porterj@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5850. For recent columns: