Martin Luther King inspired a generation of desperate peoples. "Black is beautiful, Be proud of black." was his message. Negroes became Blacks. But Dr. King also preached about a dream that one day little black children would walk hand in hand with little white children - he had a dream of racial harmony in this land. I was there - at the Lincoln Memorial - in 1963. I was one of few white folks that heard that greatest of all speeches "live - in person." I was a student of great oratory. Behind Dr. King, chiseled into marble were my previous favorite words "Four score and seven years ago - - -" Lincoln spoke at Gettysberg. But to hear King live - in person - I consider this one of the miracles of my life
. My life as relates to matters of race goes like this:
As a child growing up in Dickinson, N. Dak. I didn't encounter many Negroes. Except at the railroad depot. In those days Dickinson enjoyed about three trains in both directions every day. I used to enjoy watching the trains coming in and leaving. They were powered by steam engines, I loved the smell. I would usually hang out around where the engines would stop and watch the crews doing their chores. They would drop the ashes - burning embers - into special drops for them. They would turn the big water spouts to replenish the steam engine's water supply, they would check the axle bearings, they would grease the piston shafts. It was interesting stuff to a 10 year old. But the part I liked best was back by the passenger cars, the porters, the "colored" porters. I got a kick out of them. Their big smiles, their funny way to talk, their starchy uniforms. Mostly I liked their friendliness, their constant good humor, their self assuridness. These were the only black people that we ever saw around Dickinson.
We had American Indians! There were good Indians and there were bad Indians. I had Indian buddies. They and their parents were the good Indians. They lived in our neighborhood, they went to school with us. The only difference I knew about was they all seemed to be able to run faster than white guys. The bad Indians lived on the reservation. We didn't see them very often. Usually, twice a year, they would get their government checks, come to town, get drunk, blow their money, and go back to the reservation for six months.
Note: Eventually I plan to expand this chapter expressing how my views changed regarding Native Americans (Indians) over the years. For now, however, I will focus on my views of the racial issues regarding African Americans because this is where the dramatic transformation has occured in my lifetime.
But back then, there were no "colored" people in Dickinson. I first learned about racial equality in the boy scouts. My Boy Scout Manual had a black kid and a white kid and a yellow kid on the front cover. Of course the yellow kid was Chinese - we were in the middle of WWII. Chinese kids were OK. The "other" yellow kids I knew about at that time were "Japs." I felt good about race. I wished we had a colored kid in our troop to be my friend. But race was not really a big deal when I was a kid. Back then, we usually referred to Blacks as "colored" or "Negro." The term "Nigger" was used only by prejudiced people.
At age 17, upon graduation from high school, I joined the Air Force. You talk about scary. Here we were, in boot camp, San Antonio, Tex, July,1954, 17 kids from the farm lands of the Mid-west mixed in with a bunch of cool, hip, city guys from L.A.. What a blend. Turned out the farm boys faired better in bootcamp than did the cool dudes from LA.
In boot camp I developed my first black friend ever. His name was Henry Hudson (I wonder where he is now?) Hank's dad had worked on the railroad until he died when Hank was 10. My dad had worked on the railroad until he died when I was 5. We had that in common and along with it, the past experience of traveling on the railroad a lot as kids (because our dads had died while working on the railroad we had enjoyed free "passes"). We even had ridden on the same lines a few times.
Hank and I became close friends, in boot camp it was good to have a good friend. I remember asking him if the palms of his hands got whiter by frequent washing or if they always were that way. We had one other black guy in our flight - he was from LA. Hank didn't like him, I was afraid of him, like I was of all the guys from LA. The black guy from LA always wore "shades."
In about our sixth week, we had a lecture from Tech Sergeant Jackson, a black
guy. In bootcamp, Tech Sergeants were like God. Sergeant Jackson talked to us about race.
That's the first time I ever knew that there was a racial problem in America.
Sgt Jackson said that he loved the Air Force because the Air Force was the
first place he ever enjoyed racial "equality." He respected his
superiors and his superiors respected him.
BUT
He said, "There are some people, especially here in the South, that are
very bigoted about black people." He told us that we would run into it in
the civilian society. Prejudice would slap us in the face he said. But here on
base even in the Deep South we were all equal. I was inspired by Jackson's
speech. So was Hank. He had encountered much prejudice growing up in Kansas
City, But he was glad that at least on base in the Air Force, he was equal.
As we became closer I start calling Hank "Nigger". He called me "Krauthead" or "Nazi". I called him "asshole" - he called me "shit head". I called him "Army". He called me "MF". We were great buddies. Years later in a Sociology class in college I learned that for good buddies to call each other derogatory names was a sign of endearment. Turns out the "nigger bastard" and "Nazi" me, got stationed at the same base after bootcamp - Keesler AFB at Biloxi, Miss.
Thanks to T/Sgt Jackson's lectures, Hank and I did OK in Biloxi in 1954. On base, we were equals, I called him nigger bastard, He called me worse. We were great buddies. When we went to town we would board the bus at the "Triangle Area" and ride through the base sitting together. When we got to the Main Gate the bus would stop, the bus driver would get up and say "OK fellas, I don't agree with it but all the colored guys have to go to the back of the bus." Hank would get up and move to the back. I couldn't go back with him. Whites could not sit with blacks on buses in Mississippi in 1954.
When we got to town, we both got off the bus at the same place. We could not go to white bars together, we could not go to a restaurant together, we could not even pee in the same head together. There were many restrooms around town, usually in sets of three - Men - Ladies - Colored. Black men and women had to share one "colored" rest room. In the park they had two drinking fountains - one for "white" and one for "colored" The only places we could go together were the "colored" places. Colored bars, colored movies, even colored USO'S. I learned to love these colored places They had good music, the colored guys appreciated me coming to their places and bought me way too many drinks. Usually, on the bus back to the base Hank and I could sit together. Maybe it was because we were both drunk - maybe because the more liberal bus drivers worked late at night.
Hank was my first black buddy. Throughout my Air Force career I had many more. I came to enjoy racial equality in the Air Force. The Air Force had the first black general. When I was in the Air Force, the Air Force was a leader in racial equality. I am proud of the Air Force for this early leadership.
In 1955 I got stationed in Iceland. At that time, as we learned in a lecture upon arriving in Iceland in Sept 1955, Iceland was segregated. Iceland, they told us, was the only place in the world where the US military (We were a joint Army/Air Force/Navy Base) was still segregated. Turns out we were there at the pleasure of the Icelantic people and they had insisted that the only way we could maintain this strategic base was to not allow blacks. I have a lot of interesting stories about racial issues in Iceland but they are not significant here. What is significant is that here in the racially integrated Air Force in 1954, there were no blacks.
When I returned to the states in 1956, I got stationed at McChord AFB Wash. near Tacoma. The great Northwest was always kindly towards blacks. Erskine Caldwell, in "Gods Little Acre" talked about Seattle as a good place for "high yellas" to go to "cross over"
I had a black roommate at McChord. We became pretty good friends but not as close as Hank and I had been. At McChord I learned that I loved black music - Fats Domino, Little Richard etc. I loved Rock and Roll but I really enjoyed "Black" Rock and Roll. Blacks and Whites enjoyed pretty good racial harmony in the Tacoma area in those days. Racism was not an issue. We could ride sitting together anywhere on a bus, we could go to the same bars and restaurants and swimming pools. Tacoma/Seattle was an "integrated community" in the mid-fifties.
In October 1958 I went back home to go to college on the G I Bill. I wanted to study engineering but since I had gotten home in October it was impractical to go off to the university in Fargo so I attended the winter and spring quarters in my home town at Dickinson State Teachers College. There were two Blacks in school - basketball players that had been recruited from Illinois. They were pretty well admired by the student body because of their basketball prowess. Other than that, however there still weren't any other black residents there - except for the ones stationed at the Air Force Radar Site recently located a few miles from town. On the seldom times I encountered "Airmen" from the radar base, I liked striking up a conversation with them as an ex Air Force guy (Whites and Blacks alike). Then one night, upon getting having a few drinks with a some of my new found "college buddies" one of them suggested "Lets go over to the "Broadway" and beat up on some niggers"! Not really knowing what was up, I jumped into one of the two cars that headed to the "Broadway". Later on I found out that the "Broadway" was the only bar in town that would serve the Black Air Force guys. When the two cars of us, 8 guys, got there we went inside and sure enough, there were five Black airmen there having a few beers. The leader of "my gang" start right off using racial slurs and otherwise insulting the Black airmen. I felt humiliated to be with "my friends", but things got worse from there. My friends deliberately continued provoking a fight and "calling the niggers" outside. The Black airmen accepted the challenges and agreed to "go outside". I was hoping the Black guys would "kick some butt" When we got outside my "Buddies" went to their cars and pulled out tire irons and the like and proceeded to beat up on the Black guys. I couldn't believe it. Racism had come to my hometown in an ugly way. My "buddies" were having a great time until I finally stepped up and said the next one to go after a Black guy would have to go through me first. Most of my buddies were "tougher" than I was but I was a pretty good street fighter in those days so I was not afraid. Luckily, I was able to talk my buddies out of any further nigger bashing and we went back to our hangout bar.
Later I learned that this racism was more widely spread than I had expected from my hometown. The Black GI'S from the base could not get haircuts in town from any of the barbers, many of the "better" restaurants would not serve them, many local townspeople were critical of the Air Force for bringing "them" around even though the "radar base" was a tremendous economical boon to the area. In those days I berated the racially biased people I encountered in my hometown and always stood up for the Black guys.
In September 1959, I went off to the North Dakota State University in Fargo to embark on an engineering education. While Fargo, by national standards, was not all that cosmopolitan, it was head and shoulders above Dickinson standards. They had many"local Black people" living there (including many of the "porters" I saw as a youngster). The Black people in Fargo in 1960 were treated pretty much as equals as far as I could tell. In those days the "Pointer Sisters" were an unknown small traveling band that came to town once in a while and I was fortunate enough to meet them one night and we had a good party after their local gig. They later came back to town several times and each time I (and my NDSU buddies) went to see them and enjoyed their music and their social companionship. I think one of my more sexually aggressive buddies was able to "make love" with one of them on one of these occasions.
During my college days of the early 1960's, racial issues were relatively benign in Fargo North Dakota but nationally things were really popping. I was glad to see the progress being made by my black brothers and I constantly advocated racial equality in campus discussions. JFK beat out my guy (Nixon) for President in 1960 and while I admired JFK's stand on racial issues, I still supported Nixon because of his. JFK and the Black civil rights movement advocated "Equality Now!!" but Nixon said he was afraid that the "Immediate" demands for racial equality would create chaos in America. He advocated a slower - more conservative approach to racial equality. Kennedy won and in a way I was glad. In retrospect I'm not so sure. While I agreed with "immediate equality" I was concerned about its workability. Nixon had suggested a 20 year plan with definite milestones established. (I don't remember his proposal exactly but it something was like being able to eat in all public establishments and ride buses equally by 1964, outlaw all bias in hiring by 1968, outlaw housing dicrimination in housing by 1972, etc etc. so that in 1980 totally equality would be established. He feared that the "white" community would not accept "Equality NOW) as proposed by Kennedy and that racial strife would result. I still think Nixon was right. The "turmoil" resulting from Kennedy's approach (and later Johnson's) led to much bloodshed, rioting and racial disharmony that might well have been avoided with Nixon's approach. I really believe that if we had followed Nixon's approach we would be much better off "racially harmony wise" then we are today. There are more reasons why I believe the way I do which I will discuss in later statements on this issue.
Upon graduation from NDSU as an Electronic Engineer in 1963 I went to work for the Navy Dept in Washington DC. At that time I was proud of the progress my black brothers were making "integrating" into American society. I remember that at work with the Navy Department, there was little racial prejudice. Blacks were treated pretty much equally as whites as far as I could tell. In fact there almost seemed to be a bias in blacks favor because people seemed to want to show their "racial harmony" views by deliberately recruiting black folks into better civil service positions.
About three months after getting to Washington I went to a bar in George Town and proceeded to get drunk. At about 11;00 PM the cops came into the bar I was in and proceeded to hassle the black guys at the next table ( They were GI,s from nearby Fort Meyer.) After several derogatory statements by the cops, the black guys responded in kind and the next thing you knew they were placed under arrest and were physically dragged out of the bar and tossed into paddywagons waiting outside. I protested! There were many White guys in the bar that deserved this treatment but not the black guys. They were seated at the table next to me and I had befriended them as a fellow ex GI. When the cops found out that I was sticking up for "the Niggers" all of a sudden I became one of their targets as well. I was handcuffed and thrown into the paddy wagon along with the black guys. That night I learned about "police brutality" and "racial bias' that I had never seen before.
Later that first summer , Martin Luther King organized the black march on Washington. At the time I worked for the Navy Department located in the "Main Navy Building" on Constitution Avenue in Washington DC. Our office was scheduled to be in the center of the "March on Washington" No one knew what to expect. Here all these black people were coming to Washington to "Demand Equality Now" There might be riots. there might be mayhem. There certainly was going to be trouble. And my place of employment "The Main Navy Building" was going to be in the middle of it all. As a precaution, the Navy granted "liberal leave policy" and in fact almost demanded that everyone take off that day except they asked for volunteers (they suggested young single unmarried blacks and white batchlors like myself come in as skeleton crews to man the phones in case of a military emergency.
So I was there on that day of 28 August,1963 when they had the "March on Washington." First I went out on the mall and saw the thousands of black folks that had come from all over the country. Then the March started and they marched right in front our building on Constitution AVE. I remember seeing Charles Farmer with his bib overalls and all the other major civil rights leaders that I had been seeing on TV for the previous years. And I remember seeing rows and rows of people (about 20 across) marching behind them. Most of them were singing "We shall overcome" I was totally Impressed. I knew there were not going to be any riots. I knew there would be no mayhem. I knew I was witnessing an historic moment. But I didn't at this point realize how historic.
The marching ended at the Lincoln Memorial and the crowds dispersed onto the "Reflecting Pool" grounds right behind our Navy building. Hundreds of thousands all quietly sought a space from which they could hear the upcoming speech from their leader - THE Rev Martin Luther King. I decided to leave my post in the Navy Building and to go out back and listen to the speeches.
Eventually MLK was introduced. From his opening words I felt shivers going up and down my spine. He proposed a vision that I in my boyhood naivete had believed in. He proposed that we black and white and all races were brothers and sisters. He proposed a belief in the dream that one day little black children and little white children would walk hand in hand to a life of harmony and togetherness. He proposed non-violence. He proposed brother hood He proposed Human Harmony! And I was converted!! I believed in his dream!! After his speech I went back to my office knowing I had witnessed the greatest oration of our time if not of all time. I was there. I consider having been there and having heard this greatest of all men pour his honest guts out as being one of the most fortunate of all people alive. I admired MLK more than JFK and more than RMN and more than LBJ and more that any human person that I had become aware of in my 27 years.
If I had been an advocate of racial equality in the past I now became totally convinced that the time for equality was now! I abandoned my support of Nixon's "Go Slow" approach. I saw racial equality as the primary issue of our time. Ahead of the cold war - ahead of the space program.
Later that year JFK was killed. Many saw this as a direct result of his insistence on racial equality now. I know I did. I couldn't believe that his successor LBJ would take up the torch and in fact accelerate the civil rights movement. I expected this long time southern politician to pigeon hole the movement. I never would have expected LBJ to go down as one of the greatest presidents in the field of civil rights.
Throughout my life I have been a supporter of the notion that we are all of one family, the human family. I feel I've paid my dues in this area. I have always been a true "nigger lover" I have always been against racial bias as I have been a supporter of "women's" rights and of all human equality issues.
For many years I have avoided using the derogatory name of nigger. I changed from my childhood of calling "them" Negroes" to later calling them "Colored" to still later calling them blacks and now African Americans. I think that the main stream of White Americans have followed these namings. During these years I have seen much progress in the area of race relations. We have come a long way but we still have much progress to make. I believe that by and large we are on a path of racial harmony in this country. Martin Luther's dream is nigh on hand. Poverty and inner city slums crime and violence plaque us still but I believe that these are not "Racial" issues per se but are the out growth of other problems.
A few more generations and MLK's dreams (and mine) wil have come to fruition. We shall achieve racial harmony in this country. It will take a few more generations to achieve similar racial harmony through out the world. And more still to achieve TOTAL HUMAN HARMONY. But we are making progress. We humans have evolved from the firmament into life and thence into animals and thence into humanoids and beyond. We have evolved from cave men to the stone age, from bands of wandering beasts to tribes of savages to civilization. From the dark ages to enlightenment cometh we of the human species. And one day we shall evolve into one human family - we shall one day know full HUMAN HARMONY.
I believe we have made tremendous strides towards eliminating racism in America over the past 50 years and we should take great pride in that achievement. BUT, there still is a long row to hoe!Note: the above stuff was written in 2006 or earlier and reflects some of my views on race at that time. My views have changed slightly since then and were significantly altered by a couple speeches by today's greatest orator, a black guy named Barack Obama. In July 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic Convention, thrusting him into the limelight of American politics. This speech propelled him to become a United States Senator from the state of Illinois and eventually to become a candidate for the presidency in 2007. During the campaign, his oratory and his "audacity of hope" led to his becoming favored in the race for the Democratic Nomination in 2008. In March of 2008, he faced a major stumbling block to his candidacy when some videos of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, were aired in endless loops across the land. Rev. Wright's most destructive words were "not God Bless America but rather God Damn America!" These words could have derailed Obama's candidacy but after several days of unbelievable condemnation of both Wright and Obama, Barack made a major speech outlining his views not only of the comments of Wright but also his views of the dormant or hidden views of racism in America. The openness and candor of this speech brought renewed clarity to my mind of racial issues in America and I set them forth herein.
In this speech, Obama stated, "The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old - is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. However, what we know - what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."
He went on to address his perspective of the status of racism in America today and in the process, he opened the doors of communication on this issue across the country. He talked about the discussions of anger over discrimination that goes on in the black community, in the barbershops, the homes and the pulpits. But he also spoke of a similar rhetoric that occurs in the white community. This white rhetoric I am more familiar with. I now live in rural Louisa Virginia. A few years ago, I got involved with one of my favorite pastimes - playing poker. An acquaintance of mine had a regular poker game at his house every Saturday night and he invited me to sit in. Most of the guys playing there were local Louisa folks and many of them had not yet caught up with the "equality now" trend. I could deal with most of the cussing and off color jokes that were bandied about, that's part of the game in a male only poker game. The part I couldn't deal with was the constant debasing of "niggers" that was also part of that game. I quit going to this game because I did not want to be around a constant barrage of ugly racist commentary. Fortunately, I have now become a regular at a different weekly poker games where the discussions are much more palatable to me.
I have my little "coffee gang" that meet regularly at a local restaurant to solve the major problems of the world. One or two of our regulars are quite racist and often come up with racist comments which are largely ignored by rest. In fact, we try to avoid sitting with these guys if possible.
Even in "polite company" this racism persists. When I recently had a bunch of my non-racist friends from North Dakota visit me in Virginia. I took them on a driving tour of Washington DC. I was astonished to hear them talk about making sure the car doors were securely locked as we drove through the "colored" neighborhoods.
Even in my own mind some lingering prejudice persists. While I no longer refer to "them" as niggers, I still find myself referring to them as "them" on occasion. I believe we are all racist to a degree - black and white folks alike. Some, like my redneck neighbors in Louisa, are still deeply entrenched in their hatred. Others, like Obama's white grandmother, are afraid when a black man passes by.
Obama's well-articulated description of the racial status in America not only clarified my own thinking of this issue but he has inspired a nation to rethink its views and has laid the framework for a renewed national discussion of it.
I recall a time when I was a child, our local "non-racist" parish priest told the following story at the "Children's Mass" one Sunday morning. He was trying to encourage us kids to say our prayers regularly, even if they were very short and simple. He said, "There was this little nigger boy who had worked hard in school all day and then had played hard after school and had stayed up late so he was very tired when he went to bed. He was so tired that he just couldn't bring himself to read the long "night prayer" that his mother had hanging on the wall above his bed. He knelt beside his bed, folded his hands, looked up at his mother's long prayer and said, "Lord, them is my sentiments."
I cannot better describe my views of racism in America then to refer to Obama's speech and say, "Lord, them is my sentiments."
We live in a nation where a black male has a better chance of ending up in prison than of graduating from high school. The unemployment rate for blacks is three times higher than that of whites. Those living below "the poverty level" are predominantly blacks and Hispanics. Racial discrimination clearly persists in America but I do not think we can blame it all on racist whites. As with all issues of injustice, there are many reasons for it. There is plenty of blame to pass around. I will discuss three areas that I feel are contributing to the problem - culture, victimization and apathy.
Regarding culture I will compare civil rights of black people in America to women's rights in China. China has some of the most progressive laws in the world protecting women's rights yet women are often treated as second-class citizens there because of ingrained Chinese culture. When Chinese couples discover from prenatal sonograms that their expected baby will be a girl, they often will have an abortion because they prefer a boy. If they bring the baby to term, they often will put girl babies up for adoption. Chinese tradition and culture are the culprits here, not the bad old communist party. Similarly, the "civil rights" laws are no longer the culprits in America. Governments can change laws much quicker than the people will change their cultures and traditions. To change how people think takes time but it also takes education. Cultural progress will remain at a slow pace while we continue to express racist views in our barbershops, poker games and churches and yet refuse to address these issues in "polite" company. I feel Obama's speech has opened the doors for the later.
I am not familiar with the total of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's racial perspectives and I certainly don't want to judge him on the basis of a few politically motivated snippets that that Obama's critics succeeded in getting aired so vigorously. However, from what I have read and heard about him, victimization of black people seems to be high on his agenda. Pleading injustices against your people is a double edge sword. While it may be appropriate to point out how unfair the "system" has been and is against a race, it also provides a reason to help justify acceptance of the status quo. Black children should not be taught from the cradle that whitey is the bad guy but they should be encouraged to work harder because they have bigger challenges to over come. Black single mothers are not the victims of a racist America as much as they are of the irresponsible fathers who left them to fend on their own. The school system in predominantly black Washington DC, run primarily by black educators, spends more per child on education than anywhere else in America, yet they score among the lowest in achievement tests. White people can not tell black people to "get over it". It takes black leaders like Bill Cosby and Barack Obama and yes Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton to tell them.
In my view, apathy and greed are leading culprits to blame for the sad status of persistent racism in America. I got mine, now I'm going to get more! I feel that those of us who have had some success in achieving our goals toward the "American Dream" have a responsibility to look back at those who have failed to see if there is something we can do to help them make progress as well. This is not necessarily a racial problem but applies to all segments of society. However, since this chapter addresses my views on race, I will focus these comments on the black community. Very successful black athletes have a responsibility to help nurture their youthful fans and many of them do in an admirable way. Their hugh success places an even greater burden of responsibility on them. Many of them sponsor summer camps and inner city programs for the underprivileged and that's a good thing. However, using steroids and other illegal drugs or abusing women or holding dogfights place them as negative role models. When they are caught, they should not play the race card like O. J. does. I believe that they have a responsibility somewhere along the line to come out and say to their youthful fans that what they did was wrong and encourage them not to make the same mistakes that they did.
But an even larger segment of the black population that has a responsibility to look back are those that have achieved their success in the old fashioned way - hard work. Its okay for them to "move on up" to the suburbs, that's what they worked hard to achieve. But I believe too many of them move away as they move up. When they drain the inner cities of talent and role models when they move out, I feel they have a special responsibility to help fill those voids. One example might be form inner city support groups where successful dads might devote an occasional week end to being a "Big Brother or Dad" to an inner city boy who has neither. On the other hand, some soccer mom could go pick up some kids in the "hood" to play some kick ball in the "burgs."
This section was last updated in April 2008. The following was added on 9 May 2008
It now seems clear to me that Barack Obama will get the Democratic nomination and will win the presidency of the "United States of America!" Hooray! I seriously believe that Obama will, in fact, be a new kind of president. I believe he will be a JFK type of president that will inspire the nation to dealing effectively with some of the major problems of our time. Resolution of many of these problems will in turn contribute greatly to narrowing our racial divide. For one thing, he will be an inspiration to young Black children that hard work can lead to a successful life. His dealing effectively with other major problems such as education, health care, poverty and jobs will contribute as well. I look for "major" improvement in racial problems over the next eight years.
This section was last updated 9 May, 2008
This section is currently being revised to take into consideration of Obama winning the presidency. His election with push racial harmony forward in this country by leaps and bounds.