History: What It Felt Like
invesco field and the nomination
2008-08-29
By Del Walters
Ella Dalton sat, glued to the television, counting the buses. A domestic who spent her life cleaning the houses of people who didn’t look like her, she couldn’t afford the price of a ticket to attend the event in person, and her white bosses wouldn’t give her the time off anyway. Her fear was that not enough people would show up to hear a speech she was told would define the dreams of an entire generation. A speech that she was told would change the way White America looked at Black America. When counting became difficult she prayed.
Then, one by one, the buses started to arrive. She watched as fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers got off the buses, many of them with picnic baskets in hand to watch history. They were not disappointed. They heard a man describe his dream. A dream that one day, America would be different, better, and that the sons of slaves and slave masters would one day walk hand in hand. The day was August 28th, 1963 and the speaker was a young Baptist preacher by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Forty five years later the buses were still coming, only this time those getting off were different. America had changed. They were white, and black, and Asian, rich and poor, young and old. Forty five years later, on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech, a kid who’s father was from Africa, and whose mother hailed from Kansas stood before a crowd of 84,000 and accepted the nomination of the democratic party of the United States of America. History had come full circle. Once again the speaker did not disappoint.
This time, however, there were more than buses arriving at Invesco Field in Denver. This time they arrived by bus, limousine, and in some cases helicopter. They were divided not along lines of race, but instead age. A younger generation that had read about the civil rights movement came to see a man running for president who just happened to be black. Those old enough to remember the dogs, and hoses, and lynching’s and “whites only” signs came to witness history.
Isiah Leggett grew up in that segregated South. “I grew up in the racist Jim Crow South,” he told me. “My hometown of Alexandria, Louisiana was located less than fifteen miles from Jenna,” he added referring to the now infamous Jenna Six. Leggett, who is now the County Executive for one of the largest and most successful counties in America, said “He never dreamed he would see this day.” If Barack Obama becomes president, Leggett will be there, because his county houses some of Washington’s wealthiest residents. For Leggett, the time to celebrate was now.
One solitary figure arrived in a stretch white limousine. Slumped over in a wheelchair, he flashed his trademark smile at the mention of a single word. “Champ!” “Muhammad came here because this moment is momentous,” Lonnie Ali told me. “He had to be here,” she continued. Ali should know. It was Ali, who along with King, sacrificed his youth for a country that saw black first and fighter second. Ali spent his prime in prison, rather than take part in a war he opposed. Ali watched as his sacrifice came full circle.
This was more than a presidential speech, or nominating process. This was history. This was one of those times, one of those stories that children will tell their children about. They will remember where they were when they heard these words:
“I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States,” Barack Obama said to thunderous applause that at times was so loud it echoed through the stadium.
And with those words a dream, almost five decades old, was fulfilled. Barack Obama became the first African American ever to be the nominee of a major political party. The recipient of the dream then paid homage to the dreamer, “It is that promise that forty five years ago today brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand gathered on a Mall in Washington before Lincoln’s Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.” The torch was passed.
Eighty four thousand people watched as history was being made, and unlike forty five years ago, millions more watched on TV, or through the internet, or on their cell phones. Much has changed in forty five years. Much has not. When the speech was over, there were fireworks and platitudes. Some say it was one of the greatest speeches ever given. Others undoubtedly will argue otherwise. Ike Leggett had his own opinion and he offered it without words.
As the fireworks exploded, Leggett could be seen waving a small American flag as if he were a schoolboy reciting the pledge of allegiance for the very first time. He continued to wave his flag long after the fireworks had ended. Many of Leggett’s generation sat in their seats soaking up the moment. Several wept openly.
History has its own judges and what happened here on this night will find its place when and where the time is right. But on this night, two hundred million cracks in a glass ceiling that shackled the sons of slaves and the sons of slave owners were made, and, because of it, there can be no turning back. On this night America was no longer the sum of its separate but unequal parts, but for once appeared to live up to the mantle of “the melting pot” the nation’s founders once dreamed of.
Ella Dalton never lived to see all of the buses arrive. Forty five years is a long time to wait for people who picked cotton, mopped floors, and labored to build a nation that denied them basic human rights. Instead the job of counting those buses was passed on to me and those like me. Those, like Barack Obama, we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before, and left seeking nothing in return. Ella Dalton was my grandmother and I know somewhere, she and the rest of her generation stopped counting.
The stadium was full. Their dream was fulfilled.
Del Walters is an Emmy award-winning investigative reporter, journalist and filmmaker.
