Rewinder

Progress arrives slowly, hastened by fear, highlighted by incisive, fleeting moments of transcendence. Weeping along with Reverend Jesse Jackson on Tuesday night as President-elect Obama addressed his country, we experienced such a rare moment. But his tears should remind us that progress is not only defined by its vision of the future but as a product of the past. Jackson wept not because we had reached some fabled “Promised Land,” but because only after a lifetime of steady, but less-symbolic victories for equality, could the country have demonstrated so loudly the “true nature of its creed.”

A look back at some powerful moments in the ongoing struggle:

Rosa Parks c. 1956:

The Little Rock Nine, 1957:

Martin Luther King Jr. & Fred Shuttlesworth addressing attacks on the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, AL on May 21st, 1961:

Many more videos…

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Running even more time off grandfather’s clock, today Barack Obama offered his “closing argument” for this epic race. It got me thinking about his very first campaign speech on that chilly day in Springfield, Illinois on February 10th, 2007. Speaking to the first of his many huge crowds, he said, “I recognize that there’s a certain presumptiousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know that I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.” Well Senator, if all goes well this week, you may finally get your chance to change it.