Lincoln, King, and Obama

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, one day before Barack Obama is to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, I feel like writing something as cheerful, though not as masterful or eloquent, as the 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech given by Dr. King, a pastor, a Nobel Laureate, and the anointed martyr for the civil rights movement.

Small wonder, Obama's presidential idol is Abraham Lincoln. Dr. King picked up what Lincoln had started a century earlier. From the Emancipation Proclamation to I Have a Dream, two milestones are sandwiching 100 years. The hard fought ideal of abolition movement set in motion the freedom of a beleaguered people of color. Not just any color, but the color of black, the God-given, dark-tanned complexion of the people of African decent. In the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln guaranteed Union-wide freedom of African Americans who were in servitude. It then took the spirited outcry and civilized decry of Dr. King and others to help end the racial segregation. Dr. King paid the ultimate price by pouring out his life as a drink offering on the altar of freedom's temple.

As if time is faster forwarding, forty years after Dr. King's assassination, Barack Obama won the Presidential election as the first African American, sealing a momentous victory in American dream and evolving Americanization.

Tomorrow, Barack will swear in with the same Bible used by Lincoln, under the gaze of millions of well wishers and TV/internet spectators, not to mention the ultra tight security details. A nation has indeed taken a giant stride by choosing a son begotten by a black father and a white mother. The once divided Union now finds its perfect harmony within one persona. Barack Obama epitomizes the age-long struggle for racial equality. It is now up for the new Obama Administration to deliver the message of hope, not in pre-election sound bytes, but in parcels of tangible benefits to millions of displaced and distressed people of all colors, who find it increasingly harder to put bread to their family's dinner table or get affordable health coverage.

We all bid him Godspeed. May the good work of Lincoln and King find fuller fulfillment in Obama and the innovative American people.