A long time coming

Commentary by Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig

Who would have thought that a simple word could draw so much attention?
   Change.
    According to Webster’s Online Dictionary, this word is defined as, “An event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another; the result of alteration or modification ….”
    Some would say the “event” was last week’s election — when Senator Barack Obama became the president-elect of the United States. The “alteration or modification,” others would venture to say, will be when our new president takes office in January and implements his plans for the next four years.
    But the evolution we are experiencing began long before Obama announced his candidacy ... long before he gave his mesmerizing keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. It is something that began a little more than 47 years ago in Honolulu, Hawaii.
    Change.
    On Aug. 4, 1961, Barack Hussein Obama II was born to a white mother and black father, almost six years before the landmark 1967 civil rights case Loving vs. Virginia, which struck down the prohibition of interracial marriage. By all accounts, his birth was part of an advance in the way many Americans viewed — or should I say accepted or tolerated — these types of unions.
    Throughout his life, Obama accomplished things that altered the way people viewed him as a black man. He was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review and was the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.
    Our 44th president has a way of transforming opinions, of shaping the way we view others and of reversing negative thinking on so many levels.
    And now Barack Obama has altered history. He’s even updated his website URL.
    Change.
    There are people who don’t like change. The fear of not knowing something or someone can be scary and intimidating. But whether you realize it or not, by voting for him, and if you didn’t, by accepting that he is our new president and supporting him, you are participating in a piece of the larger change that is carrying our country into the future.
    We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, much less the next minute. But now people have hope.
    Since last week’s election, everywhere I go I see, hear and feel hope. Nationally, people seem to have a new attitude about the direction the United States is heading, like they have a new lease on life. It is unlike any other post-election period I’ve ever experienced.
    Locally, I see people walking along the street, still wearing their Obama buttons and gear. I hear conversations between passengers on the bus and on BARTdiscussing their renewed faith that some sort of positive change is — not will be — taking place around us. I’ve even had total strangers strike up conversations with me about this man who is transforming a nation.
    The reason for change is not because Obama is a Democrat attempting to clean up the Republicans’ mess. It’s not about being the first African American to hold the highest office in the land. It’s not because he is your average “Joe” next door.
    The reason for this change?
    It’s because now we believe it.
    Learn more about President- elect Barack Obama at http://change.gov.

   Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig is an award-winning journalist who resides in Oakland. If you have an individual, organization, issue or other topic that may be of interest to the Globe’s readers, contact her at talk2mfc@yahoo.com.
   Visit her blog at www.stpminute.blogspot.com.