I can't help but wake up today and feel like the world has been turned upside down.
After 233 years of hatred, prejudice, and oppression, I can finally stand atop my Boston tenement and scream, "It Is Great To Be an African-American in Boston."
My life hero, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., turned 80 yesterday. His "I Have A Dream" has come to fruition.
Almost 50 years ago, Dr. King exclaimed, "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 to pinch myself at the thought that less than one week from today, my President, our President, will have the same color skin that my Daddy had, my Granddaddy had, and my children have.
From here on in, when I tell my children that they, too, can "Have a Dream," that look of doubt will finally disappear from their faces.
Thoughts of Harriet Tubman, Nelson Mandela, and Dr. Martin Luther King will be replaced by thoughts of Barack Obama taking the Oath of Office as our 44th President of the United States.
As wonderful as I feel about celebrating the birthday of Dr. King and celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama, I somehow feel a greater sense of pride by the long-awaited election of Jim Ed Rice to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Please understand, this is not an article about racism. This is not an allegation that Rice was in any way held out of the HoF due to the color of his skin.
Rice's statistics do indeed put him on the borderline of baseball's highest honor. Rice himself responded to allegations of racism in Boston by Torii Hunter in 2008 by saying, he "never heard anything negative in Boston nor on the road."
As an African American, Rice must feel an equal sense of pride having reached the status of Baseball God—playing for an organization that was viewed as racist, in a city that was once viewed as even more racist.
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