Product Description: A powerful, fact-based drama set against the backdrop of the Watts riots of 1965. An aspiring black journalist, Bob Richardson (Blair Underwood), works as a messenger for the Los Angeles Times. After tensions flare in Watts, violence breaks out and Richardson gets a shot at the big time, reporting on the events and demanding change in the Civil Rights Movement.
Barack Obama’s general election victory was a tremendous personal vindication. About two years ago when the relatively unknown junior senator from Illinois with the funny name and the big ears announced he was running for president, his colleagues and pundits didn’t give him a chance against the vaunted Clinton machine.
But armed with a healthy ego, indefatigable hope and a sense of destiny, Obama achieved his lofty goal against all odds. Obama didn’t let his race become a liability or a chip on his shoulder, his message of hope and change transcended race and struck a chord with Americans of every ethnic and cultural background.
Obama’s triumph was a milestone for African Americans that was decades in the making. Many African Americans are old enough to remember living under Jim Crow laws, but in January they will get to witness the miracle of a black president walking through the front door of the White House.
Shortly after CNN called the election for Obama the network put up on the screen the reaction at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. Witnessing the assembled throng of African Americans weeping, cheering and dancing inside the iconic symbol of the civil rights movement, was a powerful image of how much this historic moment means to them. I’m sure there were millions of Americans of all ethnicities weeping along with them as they followed the election results from their living rooms.
Now all people of color (Hispanics, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and Native Americans) know that they too can dream of becoming a lawyer, professor, scientist, senator, and yes even the President of the United States.
The Obama victory brought joy to millions worldwide, CNN had cameras in Europe, Japan and Africa, and it was thrilling to see how crowds in these countries were overjoyed at the results of the American presidential election.
As an ethnic minority it will take a few days and weeks for me to fully savor the reality of an African American president-elect. But when Obama is inaugurated in January, Americans of all races must celebrate the victory of an intelligent, eloquent and inspired statesman, who just happens to be black.
Barack Obama serves up a “Facial” on McCain. The “Republican bigot world” is stunned, as a black man, “THE ONE,” is set to lead them out of the “Dark Ages.” The extremists — The “American Religious ‘Taliban’,” “Fox News’ Maniacs,” Right-Wing Bigot Radio, the KKK, Neo-Nazis and misc. FILTH, are shell-shocked as the Obama train rolls into the White House.
Barack Hussein Obama: “It’s been a long time coming, but change has come to America”
At the beginning of this campaign, I had faith — faith that finally a black man would lead this great nation. Even though my faith was shaky at first, in Barack Hussein Obama, I saw a brilliant “tribesman,” an intelligent and capable man, a “superb brain” like his troubled father was. I saw an exceptional human being with outstanding qualities. I saw a great American story and a great prospect for the ultimate prize in politics — The Presidency of The United States.
Exactly two years ago, I wrote: “The six year cesspool of a mess presided over by the Bush administration might not be in vain after all. It has made America hungry for a messenger with a message of hope.”
My faith in Barack Obama has been richly rewarded.
On the other side of things, the rotting corpse of the Republican Party is stinking up the United States from top to bottom. The people of America have “atrophied” the GOP into nothing more than “a very is a sick joke.” McCain, Palin and the GOP totally underestimated the fact that America has changed, and continues to do so.
In 1963, after being elected governor of Alabama, the epicenter of segregation, DixieCrat George Wallace declared: “I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation for ever.”
Since then, America has waddled through racism slowly but surely. While George Wallace’s Democrats did a one hundred and eighty degree turn in the ’60s, and embraced the Civil Rights movement, the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln(who introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, by issuing hisEmancipation Proclamationin 1863), slid into the so-called Southern Strategy, a racist scheme in which Republican candidates ignored black voters and exploited racial tensions of the white majority, in order to win elections.
To a large extent, John McCain implemented this strategy, and it fell flat on its face!
The “big-ticket” Republican “scare-issues” like outlawing abortion, gay marriage, “we can clobber the whole world” — have largely fallen into deaf ears, except into those of idiots like Joe The Plumber.
Also, the cruel xenophobic campaign by Republicans to rid the “homeland” of immigrants, last year, turned toxic for the GOP. Hispanics and other minorities eligible to vote cast their votes for Obama in droves. Young whites devoid of their parents’ prejudices flocked to Obama in swarms.
The nativist zeal in political rhetoric, with which the Tancredo led Republicans approached this sensitive issue, has proven costly, and to John McCain, who abandoned his previous reasoned approach in favor of the “Lou Dobbs Fear & Loathing,” “get them all outta here” anti-immigrant hate-mongering, it must be extra painful — for I am sure the Hispanic vote was decisive. Sixty six percent of Hispanic voters (12 million eligible) cast their votes for Obama.
Obama brilliantly co-opted the Republican theme — “Cutting Taxes” into his economic strategy. At a time when the American economy is suffering, it fit so nicely that John McCain could only fumble and stumble on the issue. The “moderate maverick” was forced to campaign like a right-wing nut-bag, with an agenda of fear — Bush-Style. Little did he know that the majority of Americans, after eight years of “murderous rule“, by George Bush the GOON, didn’t want any more of that crap.
Barack Obama’s win validates the work of civil rights activists in the last century. It is also proof that America is “evolving… trying to reach for the best part of itself,” a former activist says. Even a segregationist’s daughter chimed in: “I think Obama will be one of the best presidents.” … [READ MORE HERE]
I strongly agree!
A new era in American politics has just been ushered in, and with proper management, Obama and the Democratic majority in both houses can ensure that the right-wing fringe bigots of the Republican party remain in their “southern holes” for a long time to come.
Full Results
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Barack Obama’s Victory Speech in Chicago
Civil-Rights Icon Jesse Jackson Breaks Down
A Kenyan Savors Obama’s Victory
Martin Luther King JR.’s — “I have a dream” Speech
In Kogelo, Kenya — Villagers lined up to cast a mock ballot next to a poster of Barack Obama in Kogelo, the town in Kenya where Obama’s ancestors are from.
Also, Blood flowed as Election Day dawned in Barack Obama’s ancestral village in western Kenya.
The presidential candidate’s half-brother Malik tied a bull to a tree, then hobbled it. The beast’s head was then held to the ground as he drew a machete across its jugular.
“Hold this guy down now,” said Malik, 50, eyeing the animal’s horns as blood poured from its throat like an open tap.
“He could kill me now.”
After five minutes, the blood flow began to slow, and the fight went out of the animal, which stopped kicking and lay still, breathing heavily. “O.K., it’s over,” said Malik. “Fine animal too.” — [MORE]
Full text: Obama’s victory speech
Democrat Barack Obama has become the first African-American to win the White House. Here are his remarks as prepared for delivery to a huge crowd in his home city of Chicago:
CHANGE HAS COME
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.
It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.
PARTNERS IN THE JOURNEY
I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain. He fought long and hard in this campaign, and he’s fought even longer and harder for the country he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.
I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead.
I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice-President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.
I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation’s next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.
And while she’s no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.
To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod, and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics - you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you’ve sacrificed to get it done.
VICTORY FOR THE PEOPLE
But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you.
I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.
It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to this cause.
It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organised, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth.
This is your victory.
THE TASK AHEAD
I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.
There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor’s bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.
REMAKING THE NATION
The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.
There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.
And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
ONE NATION, ONE PEOPLE
What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.
Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House - a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity.
Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours: “We are not enemies, but friends? though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.”
And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president too.
AMERICA IN THE WORLD
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.
To those who would tear this world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you.
And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.
For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
A HISTORY OF STRUGGLE
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
When the bombs fell on our harbour and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.
She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome”. Yes we can.
A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.
THIS IS OUR MOMENT
America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?
This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.
This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can.
Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
3.McCain Loses as Bush Legacy Is Rejected — Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.
4.The Next President — Barack Obama won the election because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens.
8.A Case for Barack Hussein — An Obama presidency would change the way the Middle East sees America, argues the editor of a Moroccan newsmagazine.
9. “The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.” — ADAM NAGOURNEY, New York Times
12.Tuesday’s Second Biggest Winner: Democracy — Let’s start with Hispanics, who accounted for the most dramatic swing. In 2004, Kerry outperformed Bush with Hispanic voters 59 percent to 40 percent. In 2008, the Hispanic vote went 67 percent for Obama, and only 31 percent for McCain — a net improvement of 17 points.
Text - “I Have A Dream” Speech
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”¹
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”²
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
poster of Barack Obama in Kogelo, the town in Kenya where Obama’s ancestors are from.
