Deep in My Heart

As the people chanted "Yes we can. Yes we can" I traveled back in time to 1964. I was working a CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) benefit at the old Ashgrove coffeehouse on Melrose. An amazing Black woman ended the fundraising show by singing We Shall Overcome. Her deep soulful contralto performed a glissando as it dove to the depths of feeling and expressed "O, O, O" in three descending syllables. Then she continued, "Deep in my heart I do believe that we shall overcome someday." Her Os went from pain, to hope to faith. And when she sang, "I do believe," the emphasis was on "do." Her voice proclaimed a certainty more than just a passive hope. It was a commitment that was not going to count on someone else to make it come true. She was not waiting for God to get her out of bondage in Egypt; she was packing her bags and moving. In that moment, so many years ago, I DID believe.

Still, I was not prepared for last night. In Obama's words, it was not about him. He is neither Moses nor the Messiah. He will, I hope, be a wonderful president. But something deeper and more permanent than a presidency happened last night. Last night was about us, about America.

In 1964 my belief was imperfect. I did not dare envision the election of a Black man as president of the United States in my lifetime. However, I did believe in the achievement of equality of opportunity. I did believe we could end legal segregation. I did believe that we would walk hand in hand some day, some day soon. I dreamed of quality education for all with schools, work places and neighborhoods being mixtures of people without regard to race, color or ethnicity. My dream was colorblind.

Dreams are funny things. So much of what I saw as near term and reachable is not yet a reality. Yet what I could not imagine has happened. We are not colorblind, nor close to it. Race still matters to too many people of all our so-called races. We still segregate by race, associate disproportionately monochromatically and identify each other and ourselves not by the content of our character but by the content of our melanin.

As I watched the tears of so many on TV last and the tears in my own home, I too wept. I wept for all who did not live to see this moment--for James Chaney and for Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner who died together just for the right to vote. I cried for Reverend King whom I would like to believe really had faith enough to foresee this day. I wept for all those people of good will who made this happen.

I also wept for those who fought us, to reference the Exodus, whose hearts were hardened. I weep as I write for the adversaries who carried the terrible weight of hatred and fear, whose eyes were blinded to the light of humanity in others, whose spirits were crushed by rage.

No, we have not overcome, not yet. But we have crossed a mighty barrier. Last night the Red Sea parted, but it didn't part by itself. It took faith and work and votes. Last night we escaped slavery in Egypt. We all escaped--every people and every race that makes up America. We escaped together. We have a long journey ahead of us but it is a journey towards a Promised Land. This will be an arduous journey. There will be fights, quibbles and regrets. We will bicker and second-guess. We will backslide and it will take far longer than it should. But now, finally now, I DO believe, deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome some day.
©2008 Jonathan Dobrer