Tribute to President Obama
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Today, I am alone, “absence in my body; present with the Lord,” and thoughts of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Elect Barack H. Obama. I imagine Dr.
King in the pulpit of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. I observe the setting of this old
church that nurtured King in his youth. I imagine the boy preacher King exhorting
his “. . . sermon” (Baldwin 280). I hear Dr. Martin Luther King’s voice; it serves to
interrogate my own memory and conscience; it urges my commitment to civil and
human rights, and it shapes my memory. I merge myself into the baptismal water
of King’s voice.
Of course, the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s suggestion in 1955 that the folk
with “fleecy locks and dark complexions would inject new meaning into the veins
of history and civilization” will be realized when President Elect Barack Hussein
Obama is sworn in on Tuesday January 20, 2009. I envision Dr. King sitting on
the stage with President Elect Obama: The cultural/ religious prophetic visionary
nods to the son. I imagine the tears of prophetic pride and solemn restoration
gathering in the corner of Dr. King’s eyes. I imagine him remembering the
enslaved African, the men and women—black and white-- who walked those 381
days in Montgomery, Alabama. I imagine him remembering Abraham Lincoln. I
imagine him praying for Michelle and the girls, Malia Ann, and Sasha. I imagine
him thanking God for the folk responsible for holistically birthing President
Obama—his dad, his loving and committed mom, Ann Dunham, his sister, and his
beloved grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham
That is, of course, what all Americans must do on January 20, 2009. We must
remember to merge ourselves in baptismal waters of American hopefulness. We
must offer thanks for those who came before us, those Americans—all of them—
who have participated in nourishing the American dream. We do not always
share a unified American ideology; however, we have all yearned to be
American and to live within the context of the American dream—whatever we
believe it to be. Tuesday, January 20, 2009 is a representation of the best of the
dream, the best! Let us gather, wherever we are, to support the Obama family as
the presidential family and as an American family who must have our support, our
prayers and the restorative love owed to each one of us called American, called
human.