This 'drop of water' is really a great flood

An article in The Wilson Daily Times last week provides a sobering message to those who hoped the inauguration of Barack Obama might bring about a new era. "Today we saw a drop of water," the Rev. Alonzo Braggs, the local NAACP president, told a reporter. "... we need an ocean of change."

If the election of America's first African-American president just 44 years after legal segregation was outlawed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act and just 40 years after the 1968 Voting Rights Act began enforcing the guarantees of the 15th Amendment is a drop of water, it's a large enough drop to float Noah's ark. It's a big enough drop to flood the National Mall with upwards of 2 million joyous celebrants at Obama's inauguration.

In my lifetime, I have seen the removal of "white only" signs, the registration of millions of black voters who previously were not allowed to vote, the integration of schools and businesses and the election of thousands of black politicians to positions of great power. These are not drops of water that have dampened the social fabric, they are floods that have washed away the stain of segregation and prejudice. Obama's astounding and improbable election is a validation of all the changes that have transformed society over the past 50 years.

Early in Obama's presidential campaign, I suggested that he would be old-line racial activists' worst nightmare. Self-appointed African-American spokesmen, such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, would find themselves without portfolio, replaced by a leader legitimized by the electoral process and bearing the authenticity of nationwide public support. Braggs' suggestion that Obama's inauguration doesn't amount to much is either delusional or disingenuous. He points to the problems remaining in this country — illiteracy, crime, economic insecurity — as if any one person or one action could correct these problems. President Obama will not be able to wipe out illiteracy or poverty in one day or in eight years, but his election makes clear that these shackles can be overcome, that the trail has been blazed for individuals to overcome the handicaps that society places before them. And that amounts to far more than a drop in the bucket.