Rocky Mountain News Article

This is an excerpt from the Rocky Mountain News, the day after Barack's acceptance speech:

When Barack Obama walked to the podium Thursday night he finished the early steps taken by Hank Sanders and about 2,500 other blacks when they strode boldly on US80 in Alabama. Forty-three years. A journey that Sanders never thought he'd see completed.

"We didn't stop marching. We kept taking steps," Sanders said. "And now he's standing on all of the shoulders of those who marched before him." The 65 year old Selma resident wiped his eyes. He brought tissues for this occasion. He knew he was going to use them.

When Obama said he accepted the party's nomination for president, Sanders looked up and remembered his father, Sam Sanders---a sawmill worker with a first-grade education. A man who worked 10 hour days, got shorted on paychecks and harassed on his way home---a seven mile walk each way. Sometimes the hours were longer.

"We called it 'can't see-to-can't see'---as in can't see in the morning and can't see at night.

Alabama, with 70 delegates present on the floor of Invesco Field isn't likely to go for Obama this November. Sanders knows that, but it doesn't matter. He said that simply having Obama as the nominee is a huge mark in the nation's history. It's a history he can't forget. A history that brings tears to his eyes.

Like the time when his brother was picking cotton in a field when a white man tried to his on his brother's girlfriend. His brother wrested him to the ground. Three white men showed up, one pulling a gun on him. Another pulled out an ax. The third began kicking him in the ribs until he couldn't walk. Then, the white men called the cops and his brother was thrown in jail.

Sanders said the judge told his brother to leave the state and never come back. He didn't for 10 years.

Such stories aren't unique for the generation that fought in the civil rights era. Emma Sanders, no relation, came with the Mississippi delegation. She was a friend of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers. She found out he had been shot in his driveway when a neighbor cam and told her. She went to his funeral and cried.

As she sat waiting for Obama to take the stage, she said it was one of many regrets---that Evers wasnt alive to see history in the making. "Those that came before us and fought should be here," she said. "But I guess we knew they all wouldn't be---even back then."

They all have stories. Mississippi state Sen. David Jordan remembered being slapped about by a white man because he didn't like the way Jordan said "sir." "I couldn't do it to his liking," Sanders said. "But others had it worse than I did."

Both states were epicenters for unrest during the 1960s and both became shorhand for racism in America. The delegations now sit together at Invesco Field---black and white.

And when Obama took the stage, Hank Sanders let his eyes wander to those around him---white, black, and Hispanic---all applauding the same man. He wiped his eyes from beneath his glasses and clapped.

"History," he said. "I guess it's official."

I'm so proud to be a Democrat...and proud to be a member of a political party which is able to see beyond race, to the heart and soul of a person. Republicans should only be so lucky. Why not a black man?