It was inevitable that the Democratic Party would make history with its nominee one way or another this election, and it has finally happened. Barack Obama on August 28th will become the first african american nominee from either party to run in the general election. If you look back through history it's quite amazing how far we have come in such a short period of time. It was only one hundred and forty-five years ago that Presiden Abraham Lincoln gave his historic Emancipation Proclamation which led to the freeing of the slaves from the south. That may seem like a long period of time, but to most other countries in the world one hundred and forty years is a blink of the eye in their history. After the 15th amendment was ratified giving black citiizens the right to vote but only counting their vote as three-fifths of a vote (hmm kind of like something that just happened this weekend) it was still not until the 1960's and civil rights icons like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. that equality was actually close to being realized in this country.
Let us not also forget the other historic aspect of this election. When Hillary Rodham Clinton won the New Hampshire Primary she became the first woman ever to win a primary or caucus in the United States a feat that should not be forgotten about, she went on to win almost twenty more primaries and to receive over 17 million votes. This is also a test of how far we have come in our country also considering that women were not giving the right to vote until the 19th amendment was ratified on August 26, 1920 a full fifty years after the right was given to African Americans.
We have come along way in the United States but we also have a long road ahead. There are many people that still believe that a womans place is in the home, and that blacks have become totally equal to white people in th U.S. This statement is very false, woman are still making only seventy-two cents on the dollar to men, and black people are on the average almost ten cents less than that number. Is this a true judgment on what certain people would like to call equality.
When most white citizens have access to better education systems, better health care, and higher paying jobs, this is the problem that we need to fix to bring true equality to our nation.
However far we still may have to go Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton have given every little girl and every little black child hope that when they say "mommy when i grow up i want to be president" that now that dream is a possibility. In November we may elect our first african -american president and possibly our first female vice president. Thank you Senators Obama and Clinton for your determination and showing our children and all of us in this country that our stigmas and the inequality that still rampant in our nation that anything is possible!!!
