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Updated:
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Published: September 16, 2008 |
Grandma Would’ve Cherished The Moment
By Barbara Ciara
“Watch and remember this moment,” my grandmother said on that hot July evening in 1969. All the little girl cared about then was that Grandma Roberta was not insisting that she go to bed at the usual time.
I should have known it was a very special occasion. Grandma gathered the entire family around her old floor model Magnavox. She cupped my chin in her hand and said, “It’s important that you pay attention and remember the United States is making history. Astronauts have landed on the moon.”
My eyes widened – there it was a big moment on a small grainy black and white television screen. We held our breath as Neil Armstrong took a slow motion step in space landing one foot and then the other on the moon’s surface.
I glanced up out of Grandma Roberta’s window our eyes met briefly as she caught my gaze scanning the night sky. “It doesn’t seem possible does it?” she quizzed.
Fast forward to this year on another hot summer day, Aug. 28 where I’m sitting in the press box at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium in Denver. It is the last day of the Democratic National Convention, and I am witnessing history, only in living color.
Many of us were drawn to this place at this time for different reasons. There were journalists from all over the world sitting around me. We chatted and exchanged stories as a series of speakers stepped before the microphone.
Bernice King, daughter of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., reminded the audience that it was 45 years ago to the day that her father delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech. She said it was part of her father’s dream that a candidate for president would be considered “not by the color of his skin but the content of his character.”
Her words rekindled thoughts of what struck me most on day one of the convention. The delegates and supporters were a montage of the diversity that King dreamed about.
Walking among the people who made up that diversity stew, I overhead many conversations and discussions. One of the more memorable exchanges happened as I walked toward the convention center. I ran into a group of guys carrying a banner that read, “Rednecks for Obama.” I asked them what are the issues that attract them to Sen. Barack Obama, they smiled thanked me for asking and began talking all at once. Somewhere in that overlapping dialogue I learned they agreed with Obama’s stance on the right to bear firearms.
“What a different day it is,” I thought as I smiled to myself. No longer can you guess someone’s politics by worn out stereotypes.
Inside INVESCO Field I glanced at the time on my cell phone as Obama stepped on stage at 8:14 p.m. to accept his party’s nomination. The journalists in my row fell silent as delegates and invited citizens roared a deafening cheer. We were told later 85,000 were in the stadium to witness the historic moment.
The reporters in the press box challenged their minds and imaginations to describe what they were seeing. How does one describe a moment that will go down in the history books as a defining moment in American politics? There were moments in his speech when the stadium moved from the enthusiasm of the crowd. Thousands of feet stomped in approval.
Like every other political speech I have witnessed or covered as a journalist, I made note of the promises that were made, the agenda that was set and the predictable approval from the speakers’ choir of believers. But there is no denying this event was very different.
I thought of the words from one of King’s speeches where he talked about how long it would take for all Americans to be treated equally.
“How long? Not long,” he said.
I certainly wouldn’t have dreamed that in my lifetime I would witness a man of color would accept a major party’s nomination for president. I could hear Grandma Roberta’s words on that hot summer night long ago, “It doesn’t seem possible does it?”
Thinking of her made me wonder what she would have done had she lived to witness Obama’s historic moment, America’s historic moment.
I put down my reporters notebook and took a few seconds to convey a personal message back home.
I sent a text message to my son Robert:
“Gather my grand-kids together—and tell them to watch and remember this moment.”
Yours in service,
Barbara Ciara
President, National Association of Black Journalists |
