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published: Friday, November 07, 2008

Obama's election to White House opens a new chapter in American history

By CHRISTOPHER TUFFLEY

christopher.tuffley@newssun.com

SEBRING -- Sunrise broke over a new America Wednesday morning.

Two hundred and twenty-two years after Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men were created equal, suddenly, they really were.

The election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States marks a break in a long tradition and opens up the world of possibility for all Americans, not some.

Parents can point to him as an example, and children can believe, not imagine.

The history of race in this country has been tortured, repetitive and slow. But regardless of the frustrations and the tragedies, the setbacks and defeats, history shows the progress was relentless.

Many men and women are alive and well today who had to drink water from a tap around the corner, or sit near the ceiling of the movie theater, or in the back of the bus. But as time passes memory fades.

It's not that those who come later -- who were born into a world where at least everyone went to the same school together or those born later who had real access to opportunity -- have forgotten their parents struggle. They never knew it.

That is how far America has come.

For those citizens who were born the wrong color into the world of Jim Crow laws and raw hatred, this election has a special significance. They are grateful to be witness as one chapter of American history closes and another opens.

For younger citizens, this election is simply the time that has come.

"I'm 10 years older than President-elect Obama, so I'm kind of a bridge, " Benjamin Carter said. He is the coordinator of the South Florida Community College's Learning and Training labs and grew up in Highlands County.

"(Jessie) Jackson and (Al) Sharpton are about the same number of years older than me. I mention this because both men ran for president before and, frankly, brought too much baggage. But they were dealing from what they knew. And they were pointing out injustices.

"I can relate. I remember when I couldn't drink the water here or eat there," he said. "I remember traveling. Dad would bundle us all up into the car (to visit family in Georgia), and we'd leave home at midnight and travel at night and eat packed lunches in the car.

"I realized later it was to travel with the least traffic and go right from here to there," he said. There were towns the family avoided as too dangerous.

But what Carter thinks is historical about Obama is his refusal to blame white America for the past, as Jackson and Sharpton do. He thinks Obama's multiple heritage shaped him in a positive way, making him more understanding and less polarizing.

"I think that is what America was ready for," Carter said.

Some people were caught off guard. Melvin Browdy, a guard at SFCC who is old enough to remember Jim Crow, said, "I figured it would happen, but not now."

Others, like Princalena Hyde, were excited from the beginning. She is a student at SFCC and studying to become a teacher.

"This really breaks the walls down," she said. "I salute McCain, but the crowd around him was all white, while the crowd around Obama reflected all of America. It's 2008, get over it. We have to be a united nation. I can't wait for (the Republicans) all to calm down."

Edith D. Hays is filled with gratitude and hope after a lifetime of teaching. She taught elementary school in both segregated and integrated schools. She is a keen observer of life.

"This is certainly history," she said. "I'm looking for a whole lot of change."

Hays, who was born in Sebring and, except for college, has always lived here, attended segregated schools herself and later taught in one. She was teaching in 1971 when the school district integrated. The prospect of bringing all the students together concerned her at first. "I was really afraid for a while," she said, "but everything went smoothly."

That experience is one reason she has great hope for the future.

"(Obama) inspires me, not because of his color, but because of what he wants to change," she said -- health care, the economy, the war in Iraq. She has hope and a new sense of courage because, "I do believe the things he is saying," and she thinks he believes in them, too.

But not everyone is convinced Obama is historical.

Jimmy Johnson was digging a trench for new piping at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church Thursday. He paused a moment, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, squinting up into the sun. He'd been asked how Obama was significant.

"We don't know what he's going to do yet," he observed. "Can't be no worse than what we already have, but give the man time."