Rev. Britt, I am not familiar (embarrassingly) with all the names that you list above. I hope that you will teach us more about their places in history as time goes on!

Simone Davis

Great post. Thank you. You've said it all.

Gerald, I am NOT one of those that have taken issue with Rev. Lowery's comment: "...help us work for that day when ...white will embrace what is right."

I heard it and let it slide off like water on a duck because, like you, I knew that Rev. Lowery was of the previous generation when he perceived that the entire white race was delighting in their oppression of the black race. So, since whites had ALL the power, ALL whites could rightly be blamed for the oppression of blacks.

But, Gerald, though I am not one that reacted negatively to Rev. Lowery's comment, allow me to offer this perspective...

Rev. Lowery made it sound like the whites have not yet embraced what is right.

The problem with putting that off into the future as something the whites have not yet done - does not give credit to the many whites that have been fighting for equality and justice for ALL people (including blacks, Asians and women) their whole lives.

And, besides, didn't whites, who are the majority of this country still, just elect a black president.

Let me say that perhaps some of the whites that felt offended by this feel like they are not being celebrated for the changes they have made - and many of whom - never needed to make changes in the first place.

I would have rather that Rev. Lowry's line had said this with a different tense to his verb:

"... help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, when women will be not have to fight to survive and - because whites continue to embrace what is right - like they are doing today."

The only problem I have with Lowery's comment about how whites need to change - is this - during a moment when whites are rightly celebrating the part they have played in turning around the awful oppression caused by some of their ancestors - Lowery makes it sound like whites are still "wrong" because they haven't yet learned how to do do "what is right" - Whites are proud of electing a black president but Lowery did - for a moment - almost make it sound like Obama got elected "in spite of" the white vote rather than "because of" the white vote. Which of course is not true. White deserve credit along with blacks and others - whites do not deserve to be criticized or told they are not behaving well yet. Why dampen our (the whites') celebration by saying that we are not good enough yet and that we are still bad and have not yet embraced what is right? This election is our victory too!

Pam,

I really couldn't have imagined that there was any objection to Lowery's benediction either. I checked the blogosphere and I was absolutely floored.

I don't have time to relate it all, but I met Lowery several years ago. You have not met a more gracious, hospitable, friendly gentleman. His was there during the heat of the Civil Rights Movement and (like one or two others I have met), is in NO WAY hostile or bitter.

Lola, Jerry,

Rev. Joseph Lowery, is not a man who is just reacting to the impoliteness of not allowing black people to sit in the front of the bus and who have now decided to correct bad manners. As I said in the post, I wish the four little girls whose lives were dynamited away at the 16th Street Baptist Church, only had their feelings hurt.

To say that someone like Lowery shouldn't remember or refer to the acts of criminality, injustice, brutality, hatred and oppression that he witnessed and experienced is like saying that the Founding Fathers should have seen the Revolutionary War as a school yard fight that would be outgrown if they would just give it a rest. I always feel it incumbent to point out: we're not talking about something that happen 500-600 hundred years ago. Lowery's experiences are as fresh as 40 years ago! Much more clearly than I can, he remembers those days

The list of names of the people in the post all were brutally killed during MY lifetime (with the exception of Till who died two years before I was born). Lowery, witnessed and experienced the criminality, brutality, cruelty and injustice of segregation and Jim Crow. He worked with Martin Luther King to correct those injustices and with him experienced the hatred and vilification of whites who did not embrace what was right. The election of the first Black president cannot erase the memory or the pain. As I said - they never lived to see this moment.

This country can feel very good about taking an exceptional step in rejecting the literal horrors of its past. This was not a matter of simply treating blacks impolitely and now learning that this was wrong. This was both a systemic and systematic evil in the fabric of American historic, political, spiritual life and culture.

Rev. Lowery, saw it and experienced it in a way that most of us never have. If after having seen and experienced it the worst he prays for is the day when 'white will embrace what's right'. I think we all ought to be amazed.

Again it amazes me that we teach our children to 'celebrate' the sacrifices of those who made this country what it is - until it comes to the Civil Rights Movement. It is then, that those of us who have no scars, become resentful of 'opening old wounds'.

I am amazed that anyone thinks that whites 'deserve credit', or ought to be 'celebrated' because they recognize the intelligence and preparedness of a black man on par with that of a white man! It can be extremely offensive to suggest that black people ought to be 'grateful' because whites decide to recognize their humanity. That, in itself, is an injustice.

Segregation didn't just hurt black people, it harmed this country. Electing a black man because he is qualified (or at least considered more qualified than his opponent), wasn't a gift to black people, it was the right thing to do for this country. But it doesn't, it cannot erase the memory of a time not to long ago, when Obama or anyone like him, could have been lynched (literally) for expressing the thought of running for president!

He's talking in the collective, not making a personal attack. I'm surprised that anyone sees it as the latter. Rev. Lowery is neither bitter, nor angry and if the worst he can pray for is the day when whites will embrace what is right, I think we ought to be amazed!

Simone, I'll write about those martyrs in the next post.

Thanks Gerald and everyone for this conversation. I just read the whole post and conversation to my husband--and we are appreciating the integrity of this conversation.

Thank you for situating Reverand Lowery in history for us.

I would add that though progress has been made, racism is not a thing of the past--

Sean Bell, an unarmed young black man shot fifty times by police on his wedding day. The police were acquitted. 2006.

And just yesterday, Leonard Peltier was beaten in prison.

I know that I strive to do right as a white, but I also know that we aren't there yet. I think that Lowrey's vision, therefore, is a beautiful one.

First, I'd like to note that Barack Obama is the second U.S. president elected without a plurality of the white vote (according to exit polls, of course). The only one before him was Rutherford Hayes, who was elected with a minority of the popular vote. I think Bill Clinton was the first besides Hayes to be elected without a majority of the white vote because of the votes garnered by Ross Perot.

So white America didn't elect this president, which says an awful lot about the power of organizing in ethnic minority communities. The Democrats did it better this past election than it had ever been done before. And they can do it again next time. That probably scares the bejeezus out of the Council of Conservative Citizens, for which we should all thank God.

Second, we white Americans, however morally upright any individual among us may be, live in a country where the most powerful people are almost all whites and where benefits accrue to us because of our ethnicity. It is easier for us to get good educations, get jobs, own homes, and escape poverty just because we are white. White Americans don't necessarily get free stuff, but our efforts are more effective and our barriers are lower because of a system that is in place at the pleasure of powerful people who, as I mentioned, are almost all whites.

Most (non-elite) white Americans either (1) don't believe that they enjoy such advantages or (2) wish better for ethnic minorities but don't feel responsible for changing a system that they don't control. The people who are offended by Lowery's prayer are mostly at Point 1. If you can help a white American get from Point 1 to Point 2, you can at least get them to agree with the hope in Lowery's prayer, and that's necessary before you can get them to work for justice.

P.J.,

Thanks for combining the posts. You're exactly right, I got anxious when I didn't think it went through the first time!

Thanks to everyone else for you're contributions to these thoughts of mine. I am extremely proud of Obama's election, as an American and as black man! But I also think that it is imperative that we put this picture in the proper frame. I get really nervous when I hear people say, 'Obama's election is the realization of King's dream'. That may be true partially, but not totally.

We've fulfilled the dream when we're no longer talking about the election of a person of color, or gender, or sexual orientation as being 'historical'.

I was reading some of the Everyday posts and was somewhat surprised, as many people were, that Lowery's speech caused any controversy. I liked what Britt wrote:

"I get really nervous when I hear people say, 'Obama's election is the realization of King's dream'. That may be true partially, but not totally.

We've fulfilled the dream when we're no longer talking about the election of a person of color, or gender, or sexual orientation as being 'historical'."

Here in California I know a lot of whites who voted for Obama, including my wife and in-laws. But they mentioned how they know people who don't like blacks and hispanics. I know Asians who have prejudice. But California on the whole is fairly tolerant.

What is it like in other parts of the country, like in the South?

I don't think the dream is wholly fulfilled, but I do think all Americans, especially white Americans, should be proud of the election of an African American.

I look forward to Britt's future posts on people like Viola Liuzzo, James Reeb, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carol Robertson and
Addie Mae Collins.

My numbers above appear to be incorrect. Bill Clinton narrowly failed to gain pluralities of white voters twice; Carter failed in 1976. Further, John Q. Adams was also elected president with a minority of the popular vote. My apologies for the errors.

Nonetheless, no one has been elected U.S. president before with such a small percentage of the white vote.

Jeffrey, you say that "white America did not elect this president" but I find that I need to disagree with you on that. You say that Obama did not have the "plurality" of the white vote, but, still Obama had more white voters than any other kind of voters.

Therefore, those that suggest that whites elected Obama are also correct in that most of those that voted for Obama were, after all, white.

The U.S. Census department reports that in 2006 (their last year to supply registered voter numbers) there were 173,873,000 white citizens in the United States. That same year, the U.S. Census tells us that there were about 25,722,000 African American citizens in the United States. According to these numbers, whites outnumber blacks almost 7 to 1.

If whites outnumber blacks 7 to 1, how is it possible that most of Obama's voters were not white, but were instead black as you suggest?

Jeffrey, I don't think that you meant to suggest that most of Obama's voters were black, did you? Isn't it actually the truth to say that most of those that voted for Obama were actually white? Therefore, isn't it indeed the truth to say that more whites voted for Obama than any other ethnic group?

Jeffrey, if you disagree that most of Obama's voters were white, then, please share your sources.

-Simone

Simone,

I think what Jeffery was refering to is (according to the stats), somewhere between 43-44% of white voters chose Obama. Therefore, he didn't win the majority of the white vote, although he did garner a greater percentage of the white vote than any other Democratic candidate. I THINK that's correct.

Jeffery if I'm incorrect please set me straight.

Simone,

The Republican candidate for U.S. president has received (as far as we can tell by exit polling) the plurality of the white vote in every election since LBJ's 1964 landslide. Indeed, their candidate has received the majority of the white vote except for the two times that Ross Perot was a candidate. The four Democratic candidates who have won a presidential election since 1964 have done so without winning a majority of the white vote.

So, I say that white America didn't elect Obama in this sense: if the election were left up to white people only, Obama wouldn't have been chosen (neglecting any further analysis of which states could have swung their electoral votes if non-whites were shut out). Only Clinton has received a portion of the white vote about as low as Obama's and yet been elected (Perot, of course, was in the mix). That's significant: white people didn't get their way, despite throwing their weight significantly toward the other candidate.

The ethnic split was perhaps even more remarkable in 2008 than in 1992. Perot probably drew a lot of first-time, last-time voters to the polls, people who would have stayed home or voted against Bush. Without his candidacy, the white vote would probably have been a wash, since even with his candidacy, Bush and Clinton had nearly the same numbers of white voters (with a slight edge for Bush). In 2008, however, polls seem to indicate that lots of white people who would ordinarily vote stayed home because McCain wasn't conservative enough and/or they thought that Obama couldn't be beaten. So, although Obama received about 43% of the white vote, he probably didn't have the support of 43% of eligible white voters.

That means that presidential politics has shifted away from the control of white conservatives more than ever in the past, if only because it is shifting from the control of whites, generally, for demographic reasons. Never before has a president's election relied so heavily on a "rainbow coalition". Obama has shown that it's possible, and demographic trends suggest that it's going to be repeated.