A Day for the History Books

And dwelling on history for its own sake won't help the Democrats win. You can make history, but you can't eat it: acts of political inclusion, falling racial barriers—none of that necessarily puts food on tables.

Still, let's pause and give credit where it is due, to the party—which is truly diverse, no matter how fat the fat cats are—and to blacks who channeled their dreams and frustrations into the cause of gaining power through the system—and who have thus just renewed it.

When I shook hands with John Lewis, I knew that he was seeing this week through the eyes that had seen Selma. "So much history," he said to me. "And now I have no more tears left! I'm cried out!" He was laughing when he said this, but I didn't believe him.

In the hall, the roll call Wednesday ended when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton graciously went to the floor so that she could lead the New York delegation in calling for Obama to be nominated by acclamation. It was a moment marked for only a few minutes, with cheers and music, but it was, technically and legally, the Rubicon of race.

Afterward, on the way out of the hall, I fell into a conversation with a law professor named Ron Sullivan. He was African-American and had gone to Harvard Law School with Obama. He practiced corporate law in Washington then returned to Harvard to teach.

He had his wife and their young son in tow. The boy, dressed for the occasion in an argyle sweater, wasn't quite 8. Smart and aware, he was surveying his surroundings—the Pepsi Center, the walkways leading to downtown Denver—with a precocious sense that he knew exactly where he was. For the boy, it was a political convention—nothing more, nothing less. It was his first, but I bet, not his last. He looked like he belonged there, every inch the young scion born to take his place eventually as a leader in America.

To quote Kanye, it's time to touch the sky.

© 2008