1963 is not an end but a beginning.About a decade ago my father told me something very interesting. He said that some time in the early 60s he realized that segregation was coming to an end. He thought, there's going to be hell to pay for the next twenty years, but after that things will probably be better. So nothing that happened in the 60s or 70s surprised him --riots and crime and conflict over issues like busing were only what he expected from such a profound social change. But some time in the 80s he started to wonder when the racial nightmare would finally be over.
--M.L. King
Has it been a long time? I wonder. What is a long time for a social change? And how deep and profound is America's racial divide? Compared to, say, the division between aristocrats and commoners, or the subordinate status of women, racism is a recent creation. I can imagine a world in which it will become a strange historical curiosity -- something I cannot imagine about issues of sex and class. But will it?
We have a half black president, but on the other hand a lot of Americans are determined to write him out of the Republic by fair means or foul. Which is a more important sign of the state of America, Obama's election or the hatred he arouses in his enemies?
I find myself reflective on this anniversary, and wondering where we really stand.
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