Where do we go from here: America after Obama | MSNBC

For African Americans, the election of Barack Obama was part triumph, part miracle.

The triumph was the culmination of more than a half-century of struggle to gain access to the ballot and create political space within the once-hostile Democratic Party for a mobilized Black electorate. The miracle was that the son of an African father and white American mother, virtually unknown just four years before and carrying a name primed to trigger the Islamophobia and xenophobia of fellow Americans like none in our history, actually became the 44th president of the United States. The end of that triumphant, miraculous era means several things to Black Americans.

It means that Black Americans will no longer be able to take for granted that a young and elegant, sophisticated and unapologetically Black family resides, presides and represents this country from the secular sanctuary of the White House; though never again can it be denied that they can and did. For many Black Americans, the mourning has already begun.

Where do we go from here: America after Obama | MSNBC