A Year After - Barack Obama and Holding onto Hope

Ohio University, Chillicothe, OH
February 26, 2010

C. Anthony Hunt, D.Min., Ph.D.

A little more than a year after the election and inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, these continue to be days of tremendous change and challenge in our society. From the collapse of the economy that has affected all of us – to the wars that continue to be fought in at least two places in the Middle East – to the proliferation of violence that affects many of our urban communities - to the health care crisis that results in over 40 million Americans living without healthcare today, these are days of unprecedented change and challenge.

For many, Obama’s historic election as the first president of African descent renewed (or birthed) a sense of hope across the nation and the world. The election of Obama seemed to point - for many - to glimmers of hope that our society had somehow arrived at our ideals of “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many one), and the creed shared in our nation’s Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (persons) are created equal.” Throughout his presidential campaign, Obama offered a framework for what he termed an audacity of hope amidst the challenges we face.

On November 1, 2008, three days prior to the election, I was invited by St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore to give a lecture dealing with the matter of the church, society and race relations over the past forty years, and I was invited to address the question of whether it is possible - or even desirable - for us to strive to become color-blind. In my reflections, I was drawn back to the recalling some of what was occurring in America in the late 1960’s. We recalled that it was a time of great racial tension in America. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 spawned a proliferation of violence in cities across the United States. In cities like Detroit, Washington, DC and Baltimore, in the aftermath of King’s death, we witnessed communities turn upon themselves in acts of violence and destruction. The images of large business corridors, residential communities and places of worship being looted and burned are still vivid in many of our memories.

In 1968, the Kerner Commission Report, which President Lyndon B. Johnson had requested in light of riots that had broken out in several cities across the United States, summarized the state of race relations in America by noting that “America is a nation of two societies, one black and one white, separate and unequal.”

The Kerner Commission report is to be viewed against the backdrop of the history of racism in America. In 1903, African-American sociologist W. E. B. DuBois pronounced that the problem of the 20th century would be the problem of the color-line (The Souls of Black Folk). In 1944, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal discussed the plight of African Americans within the context of what he referred to as an "American dilemma." (An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy).

Barack Obama’s historic election and his first year in office is also to be viewed against the backdrop of the history of racism in America. As for Barack Obama’s election, many seemed to sense (and hope) that it usher in an age of post-racism and post-racialism in America – and perhaps across the world. A year later, we discover that we as a nation are continuing to come to grips with the racial and racist realities that continue to afflict us.

In his book, The Audacity of Hope (2006), Obama in-fact, offered words of caution to America in thinking that we may have arrived at becoming “post racial” or that we already live in a color-blind society, and that we may be beyond the need for discourse and critical engagement as it regards racism and related forms of oppression and injustice. He wrote:

"To say that we are one people is not to suggest that race no longer matters – that the fight for equality has been won, or that the problems that minorities face in this country today are largely self-inflicted. We know the statistics: On almost every single socioeconomic indicator, from infant mortality to life expectancy to employment to home ownership, black and Latino Americans in particular lag far behind their white counterparts.[i]

We also recall, that Obama, in a major address entitled “A More Perfect Union” that he delivered during his presidential campaign, offered an analysis of the prevalence of racial tensions which continue to define the relationship between the black and white communities. Obama argued that to simply shelve anger 0r “wish it away” (the race problem in America) could prove to be completely detrimental. Unambiguously, Obama pointed to a belief that race factors into the opportunities provided to each American citizen.

To support his belief, he noted that the inferior school systems today are often the ones that we segregated fifty years ago. Obama shared that the history of racism in America is undeniably at the root of the lack of opportunities for African American today. In light of this, it is both achievable and necessary for all Americans to unite and battle racial prejudices. In order move to a more perfect union, people of all races must recognize the historically oppressive and tyrannical nature of racism and its impact on the black experience in America.

A year after President Obama’s historic election, several recent events have served to heighten awareness as to the ongoing problems of race and racism in America. Among these are the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor; the arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge, MA; debate surrounding the president’s September speech to students returning to schools across the nation; the heckling by U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson (South Carolina) during a speech by President Obama to a joint session of the U.S. Congress; the ongoing debates surrounding the president’s efforts toward reforming our nation’s healthcare system; and the emergence of the Tea Party and other reactionary expressions toward so-called progressivism in the nation. During a visit – last summer - to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery AL - I and others who were a part of the visit were informed that there were over 800 hate related groups identified in 2008, and that this number is on the rise since Obama’s election as president.

In 1992 philosopher Cornel West published an important book entitled Race Matters. The book was written against the backdrop of the Los Angeles riots of April 1992, which followed the acquittal of the police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King, and the ensuing racial tensions in that city. In the book, West pointed to what he referred to as the “nihilism of Black America” – where a certain nothingness, meaninglessness, lovelessness, and hopelessness seems to have pervaded and permeated much of our society – particularly in the urban context. According to West at the time, race matters in America.

In one of his later sermons, "The Meaning of Hope," Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. defined hope as that quality which is "necessary for life."[ii]

King asserted that hope was to be viewed as "animated and under girded by faith and love." In his mind, if you had hope, you had faith in something. Thus, hope shares the belief that "all reality hinges on moral foundations.”[iii]

For King, hope was the refusal to give up "despite overwhelming odds." This hope would beckon us to love everybody – both our enemies and allies. This hope would help us to see that we can resist giving up on one another because our lives together are animated by the belief that God is present in each and every one of us.

In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in our Nation’s Capital in the summer of 1963, King shared that a part of his dream was that we would be able “to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

In his most recent book, Hope on a Tightrope (2008), Cornel West cautions against a false sense of security in hope, yet unborn. He points out that real hope is grounded in a particularly messy struggle and it can be betrayed by naïve projections of a better future that ignore the necessity of doing real work. For West, real hope is closely connected to attributes like courage, faith, freedom and wisdom. It comes out of a history of struggle, and points to a future filled with the possibilities of promise and progress.[iv]

A year after the historic election of President Barack Obama, it is evident that there remain significant challenges to the actualization of real hope in America. Further, it evident that race still matters in America, and that while we may be moving toward such real hope, it is a hope yet unborn in its fullness.


[i] Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), 232.

[ii] King, sermon delivered on December 10, 1967, see Garth Baker-Fletcher, Somebodyness: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Theory of Dignity, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 132.
[iii] Baker-Fletcher, 132.

[iv] Cornel West, Hope on a Tight Rope (New York: Smile Books, 2008), 6.