The Wisdom of Youth

Like many others, I first became aware of Barack Obama as a national figure when he, an Illinois State Senator, gave his now famous 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address.  He inspired a nation by identifying his idiosyncratic personal story, father from Kenya, mother from Kansas, named Barack, with the highest hope s and dreams of America.

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or ”blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined — They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential.
I heard about the speech from my son, Sam, who was then living in Obama’s neighborhood, Hyde Park, as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.  I was teaching in Krakow, Poland that summer, and in a phone conversation, Sam confidently instructed my wife, Naomi and me that we had to listen to the speech.  We had already read about the speech.  Sam predicted that Obama would be the next President of the United States.  We had our doubts.  He was prescient.
For Sam, the prospects of an African American President didn’t seem as extraordinary at it did for Naomi and me.  We came of age during the height of the civil rights movement.  We remember when overt racism was on ongoing part of daily life.  Young though we were, we remember the March on Washington and the “I Have a Dream” speech.  We remember the slain civil rights workers.  We remember the urban riots, the urban decay, and the fear on the city streets that followed.  We remember the golden age of television, when black and white were the color of the images but not of the people on the screen.  We lived through many firsts for African Americans and women, but the first we couldn’t imagine in our lifetime seemed to Sam to be likely, given Obama’s talents.  His world, the world in which he grew up, was one where talent decided, among his diverse group of friends, at school, in his profession, as a lover of jazz and a great sports fan.  It turned out that Sam’s was the wisdom of youth, a wisdom that repeatedly revealed itself in the years that followed concerning Barack Obama’s prospects.