A Challenge Lies Amidst the Victory

A black president. Such a shallow phrase, yet it speaks volumes about our country in a strikingly bold way. Finally, I have experienced something in my time to rival the hard-won successes made possible by the perseverance and struggle of those that came before me. The last hurdle in at least one relay for rights which has drained the moral fiber of America for far too long. How fortuitous that it sees its final moments in the state where its end began, thirteen amendments and twenty-eight presidents in our past. And yet, this monumental achievement is not the highest victory, nor the real lesson to take away from this historic moment. A more subtle truth lies beneath.

This truth can be summed up best by the e-mail we Obama supporters and volunteers received moments before the nation-shaping speech he gave in Chicago:

“And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.”

This campaign has opened up a new world of engagement; it has, in the short time of twenty-one months, renewed the ailing institution of American democracy. Our communities are connected like never before, and for once – finally – we can see our country uniting in a way that is both refreshing and empowering. We’ve become engaged with hundreds of people in our communities we would otherwise have no relationship with, and we’ve fought alongside them for a higher cause than ourselves. Ours is a camaraderie that was once engrained into the entire citizenry, but that we are just now reaching for again. With self-sacrifice and humble consensus building, we have created a pool of social capital so vast, there is nothing we can’t accomplish.

And we have instead of a ruler or a figurehead, a leader who isn’t afraid to take up the baton and lead us himself. A president that understands what his role in this sweeping referendum for change is; who knows that the responsibility lies with each of us and that he can only be the guiding light. It truly is the power of our ideals – democracy, liberty, equality, justice – that defines us and thrusts us forward as the inevitable leaders of the free world. For it is an honestly humble and wise man that can acknowledge to his countrymen that “we have a lot of work to do” and an uncompromisingly selfless and inspiring leader to hold such faith in his people that we should be included so prominently in the process.

But his efforts mean nothing without our involvement. His pains to acquire office and all the worries that must come with being such a fearful image to the fringe of our country –who still holds outdated values – will be for not if we fail to carry the torch he has lit so brightly for us. For while we have won this tide-turning battle, the war for America’s future has just begun. We have been ordained as soldiers in this battle, and with the tools that have been forged for us by this historic campaign, we must take up arms and fight like our children’s very lives depend on it… because they just might.

And so, I challenge you, America, to rise above the apathy and personal struggle that’s become our reality. I challenge you, America, to breathe righteous life back into the democratic process. I challenge you, America, to keep every single e-mail address and phone number you’ve gained from allies in this campaign. I challenge you, America, to schedule your next meeting as though the campaign never ended. I challenge you, America, to feed and water the seeds of progress we’ve sown, so that we may one day reap a better future than the one we were handed.

I hold the hope that we are up to these challenges, and a belief that we are ready to overcome these difficult times and leave them behind as a more united America in a more peaceful world.

To all my friends who fought hard for this win, for the people who marched in the rain; stood for change in the cold of winter; made those tenuous phone calls to strangers around the nation; and to those who knocked on doors, literally to face the challenge of changing America one person at a time, I have this to say:

We banded together at this moment, destined to be historic, to let our nation know that we are here to be their – our American brothers’ and sisters’ – keepers. Obama may be the vessel of change and our great elixir of hope, but it is we who poured this hope into our world. And not for a brilliant half-Kenyan American Senator that we love, respect, and follow with clean conscience – but for this country that, no matter how cynical we become, we love with all our being. It has nurtured us, and it has nurtured this hope. And we are obliged to give back; to return the charity of our self-sacrificing forefathers.

For there is still a great deal of perfecting to be done in this union, and as President-Elect Obama would insist on reminding us when we seek the purveyor of these changes:

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

And I’m done waiting.