The Meaning of Obama's Victory.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Comment - Barack Obama - Essay

On November 4, I got to my polling place at 6:30 in the morning, just as the sun was coming up. I was number sixteen in line, even though the polls didn't open until 7:00, and the line was quite long when I left.

There was excitement in the air, mixed with fear that another election might be stolen. And there was a sense of anticipatory, barely contained giddiness.

For many of my neighbors in this heavily Democratic precinct, voting was not only about breaking with the eight long years of the Bush Age, but about something bigger still.

For 400 years, this land has been scarred and marred by racism. It is the blot that would not go away.

150 years ago, blacks in the American South were slaves.

100 years ago, blacks all over America were victims of a plague of lynchings.

50 years ago, blacks in America were still effectively disenfranchised by Jim Crow.

40 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

But on this day, November 4, 2008, a black man was elected President of the United States.

In 1938, the great poet out of Harlem, Langston Hughes, wrote:

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be . But he added: "America never was America to me."

Langston Hughes went on:

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man may be crushed by one above. We've had a king connive and a tyrant scheme over these past eight years, and many a man has been crushed from above.

Langston Hughes continued:

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe ." But he added:

(There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this 'homeland of the free.') On November 4, equality was in the air, and it tasted good.

T o be sure, Obama's victory spells neither the end of racism nor the realization of full equality. Prepare for a backlash. Prepare for a generalized sentiment in the white population that there no longer is a need for affirmative action or other civil rights protections once a black man sits in the Oval Office. Prepare for blaming the victims of lingering and institutional racism for not being able to get ahead.

And to be sure, Obama's victory does not spell the end of injustice in America.

In that same poem, Langston Hughes wrote about our economic system:

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak ... Of profit, power...