By: Harry S. Wright (older brother of Marian Wright Edelman)
Barack Obama has been elected and inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America. What does this remarkable and defining moment in American history mean to me as a native of Bennettsville and a Christian minister?
I am an eyewitness to history and of the continuing progressive unfolding of American democracy.
My grandfather, Reverend Arthur Eames Wright (1856-1927) was born a slave in Thickery County--Gaffney, South Carolina. His last name, Wright, was the name of his slave-owner.
My father, Reverend Arthur Jerome Wright (1900-1954) was born in Gaffney, South Carolina, and came to Bennettsville with his young wife (my mother) in 1929. The two of them led in the erection of the Shiloh Baptist Church Complex on Cheraw Street and poured their lives into the soil of this community. My father's "pastoral momentum" was driven by Holy Scripture and the philosophy of Booker T. Washington. In the early 1940s he and my mother established a home for the aged long before there were any public accommodations for the aged, the needy and the homeless. He died on May 6, 1954, shortly before the long anticipated Supreme Court Decision of May 17, 1954, declaring racial separation in America's public schools unconstitutional.
I was born in Bennettsville in 1931. My siblings and I were educated in our local school system: segregated, separate and unequal. We were not allowed to use the local county library. But now a new state-of-the-art library is under construction here that will be named in honor of my younger sister: The Marian Wright Edelman Public Library of Marlboro County. And here we are as of November 4, 2008, and January 20, 2009, with the election and inauguration of an African American as the 44th President of the United States of America and leader of the Free World.
It is remarkable. Mr. Obama's rise to political visibility seemed so sudden and so destined, as if there has been a righteous wind at his back. Imagine:
•He is the product of a broken home;
•He has bi-racial parentage;
•At one time his mother was on food stamps;
•He grew up in Hawaii, Indonesia, New York and Illinois;
•He was loved and adored by his mother and grandparents;
•He was touched and tutored by some wonderful people;
•He obtained a world class education;
•He grew global in his outlook toward the family of nations;
•In his flawless campaign for office, he demonstrated character traits that convinced a decisive majority of the American people to look beyond ethnicity and cast their vote not on color but on character.
•Literally unknown but possessed with what some have called an uncommon intelligence;
•A community organizer, a State Senator, a United States Senator and now The Oval Office.
What does this election mean to me?
1.In my view, OPPORTUNITY, for our nation to regain its place as leader of the Free World. Mr. Obama's, color, competence, self confidence, intelligence, sentiments, character, vision, strength and hope equip him in these times of dangerous unrest to speak with moral clarity and authority. The frightening reality of our time is that the family of nations have no choice but to find ways to co-exist in mutual respect and peace. The prophetic voice of Martin Luther King, Jr., reminds us that we must learn to live together or we shall perish together. In a hostile, volatile world made small by the marvels of technology, our global choices are: peace on earth or no earth. Our nation, blessed and endowed, has in Mr. Obama fresh new opportunities to say "Yes We Can" be a light and an example for the family of nations
2.In my view, EVIDENCE of the continuing and progressive unfolding of the political experiment in governance called democracy: a government of, for and by the people. His election on November 4, 2008, was a choice made by a decisive majority of free people who expressed themselves at the polls. What a remarkable republic is ours, in which a free people choose their leaders not with bullets but with ballots. And so Mr. Obama will occupy and work out of the Oval Office, and his young family will reside with him at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in a residence we Americans respectfully call The White House. It is a house built with the significant aid of slave labor. Unfolding before our eyes is this remarkable saga in the onward march of American democracy. Only in America, Martin Luther King, whose 80th birthday, a federal holiday, was celebrated recently, foresaw the day when America, growing toward The Beloved Community, would gradually come to judge people not by color but character. Mr. Obama's election is evidence, in my view that
•Change has come to America;
•Democracy can work;
•People can grow;
•Hard work pays:
•Truth crushed to the ground will rise again and God answers prayers.
3.His election, in my view, is VALIDATION of what I was exposed to and taught growing up in Bennettsville: by my parents, my public school teachers, my scout master, my church and "the old people" in our community, that there are essential truths and values that are universal and timeless. Among these are:
•All of us are made in the image of God;
•None of us needs be defined or confined by circumstance or environment;
•Self respect, hard work, honesty, manners, character, a good education, faith in God and hope are essential ingredients that make for maturity.
We were inspired to dream long before our new President's wonderful books: Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope. But his inspiring ascension to national and world leadership, beyond class and color and ideology, makes valid for me these timeless values from my own yesterday.
A final reminder is that this defining moment in our nation's remarkable history has not come without great price. The long walk toward freedom for all Americans has been over a way that with tears has been watered. It has been costly to attain access to the ballot. It has been costly to attain access to public accommodations. It has been costly to attain access to equal educational opportunity. These "open doors" of opportunity have come as a result of:
Freedom Rides - Sit Ins - Protests - Marches - Lost Jobs - Blood-shed - Martyrdoms - Hard Work - Weary Feet - Gloomy Days - Sacrifices - Faith - Hope - Love and Prayer.
Our new President's hopeful slogan --Yes We Can -- rests on the tear-soaked shoulders of so many who did so much to make America's brighter days possible. Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Malcom X, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., and countless, nameless, invisible "others" of every color and faith have joined together to push America toward her better self. I am an eye-witness and a participant in these remarkable and defining moments of our nation's history. "Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand, True to our God, True to our native land." *
Harry S. Wright
Native and resident of Bennettsville
Minister at Shiloh Baptist Church, Bennettsville (1954-1967)
Pastor Emeritus, Cornerstone Baptist Church
Brooklyn, New York
*Line lifted from "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson