Something changed Tuesday night.

Morning in America by Eugene Robinson

(Washington Post) November 7 - I almost lost it Tuesday night when television cameras found the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the crowd at Chicago’s Grant Park and I saw the tears streaming down his face. His brio and bluster were gone, replaced by what looked like awestruck humility and unrestrained joy. I remembered how young he was in 1968 when he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., moments before King was assassinated and hours before America’s cities were set on fire.

I almost lost it again when I spoke with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), one of the bravest leaders of the civil rights crusade, and asked whether he had ever dreamed he would live to see this day. As Lewis looked for words beyond “unimaginable,” I thought of the beating he received on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the scars his body still bears.

I did lose it, minutes before the television networks projected that Barack Obama would be the 44th president of the United States, when I called my parents in Orangeburg, S.C. I thought of the sacrifices they made and the struggles they endured so that my generation could climb higher. I felt so happy that they were here to savor this incredible moment.

I scraped myself back together, but then almost lost it again when I saw Obama standing there on the stage with his family — wife Michelle, daughters Malia and Sasha, their outfits all color-coordinated in red and black. I thought of the mind-blowing imagery we will see when this young, beautiful black family becomes the nation’s First Family.

Then, when Michelle’s mother, brother and extended family came out, I thought about “the black family” as an institution — how troubled it is, but also how resilient and how vital. And I found myself getting misty-eyed again when Barack and Michelle walked off the stage together, clinging to one another, partners about to embark on an adventure, full of possibility and peril, that will change this nation forever.

It’s safe to say that I’ve never had such a deeply emotional reaction to a presidential election. I’ve found it hard to describe, though, just what it is that I’m feeling so strongly.

It’s obvious that the power of this moment isn’t something that only African Americans feel. When President Bush spoke about the election yesterday, he mentioned the important message that Americans will send to the world, and to themselves, when the Obama family moves into the White House.

For African Americans, though, this is personal.

I can’t help but experience Obama’s election as a gesture of recognition and acceptance — which is patently absurd, if you think about it. The labor of black people made this great nation possible. Black people planted and tended the tobacco, indigo and cotton on which America’s first great fortunes were built. Black people fought and died in every one of the nation’s wars. Black people fought and died to secure our fundamental rights under the Constitution. We don’t have to ask for anything from anybody.

Yet something changed on Tuesday when Americans — white, black, Latino, Asian — entrusted a black man with the power and responsibility of the presidency. I always meant it when I said the Pledge of Allegiance in school. I always meant it when I sang the national anthem at ball games and shot off fireworks on the Fourth of July. But now there’s more meaning in my expressions of patriotism, because there’s more meaning in the stirring ideals that the pledge and the anthem and the fireworks represent.

It’s not that I would have felt less love of country if voters had chosen John McCain. And this reaction I’m trying to describe isn’t really about Obama’s policies. I’ll disagree with some of his decisions, I’ll consider some of his public statements mere double talk and I’ll criticize his questionable appointments. My job will be to hold him accountable, just like any president, and I intend to do my job.

For me, the emotion of this moment has less to do with Obama than with the nation. Now I know how some people must have felt when they heard Ronald Reagan say “it’s morning again in America.” The new sunshine feels warm on my face.

I already told y’all when I almost lost it on Tuesday night, when I saw the reaction of Spelman College students and faculty to the news that Barack Obama was our next president.

But I almost lost it again a day or so later, when I thought about Mrs. Richardson and Mr. Lee and Mr. Younger.

Mrs. Richardson was my fifth grade teacher.  I have written before here about how blessed I was as a kid growing up, having the good fortune to have had a series of amazing and wonderful elementary school teachers.  Mrs. Richardson was one of the best of a great bunch.  She started out that year as Miss Lott, and returned after Christmas break (if my increasingly feeble memory serves) as Mrs. Richardson.  I do remember that we had a party for her.

Mrs. Richardson was also the first teacher I had who was also a woman of color.  She was strong and serious and did not suffer fools lightly.  She was also one of the most compassionate people I have ever known.  She taught all of us a lot about how to be good young people.

Mr. Lee was one of my junior high social studies teachers.  He was tall and lean and he had a very deep baritone voice that fairly rumbled out of him.  He was also young and enthusiastic.  He ran a strict classroom.  Mr. Lee was also the first black man I ever spent any time around.  He was into sports and was always around to talk football or baseball with us after class.  I also remember that he never  had to yell: he knew the importance and tactical use of a well-timed scowl.

Mr. Younger was my high school mechanical drafting teacher.  I took drafting for all four years of high school, and had Mr. Younger for three of those.  Drafting was my “shop class,” and let’s face it: many of us did not take those classes very seriously.  Well, you took Mr. Younger’s class seriously, or you got the hell out.  He set the bar high, and he expected us to reach for it.  I spent the better part of one year perfecting my numbers (remember: this was back when everything was done with pencils and drafting tools, not with CAD or any of that new fangled stuff).  He did not accept sloppy or lazy of half-baked, and he was not afriad to get in your face if he thought you were being a goof.  He was funny in a very dead-pan way, and warm.  I also learned a handy teaching tool from him: the important of peppermints to keep one’s breath fresh for up-close encounters with students during conferences and such.  Mr. Younger was a mentor to me at a time when I had grown a bit distant from my own father, as many boys do at that age.

I wondered about these three of my old teachers this past week.  I wondered if they were still living, and if so, if they were well.  I wondered about, if they are still with us, how they are feeling right now, about the change that Tuesday night really represents for all of us.  ALL of us.

I wish there was a way I could share my joy with them.  And I wish there was a way I could tell them how I try each day in my classroom to live up to the standards they set for me, and for all the kids who were lucky enough to have passed through their classrooms.  They were role models for all of us, without having to work very hard at it.

The fact that they were also people of color was just gravy.