He's got the world thinking again, revisiting assumptions, believing in change, and the unlikeliest of folk are celebrating his astounding achievement. He has been called many things, among them - the One.
Last month I was told a story by Lonnie Bunch of the Smithsonian Institute. More than 40 years ago there was a picture of Abe Lincoln and George Washington above the blackboard of Bunch's primary school. The teacher proclaimed: "If you work hard this year you too can be the president." Bunch tells me he remembers thinking this was lie - "Until Barack Obama."
I was in New York during the presidential election and it was great to see people of every creed and colour celebrating. Unsurprisingly it was the sentiments of African Americans that were most striking. One young man said though he had been born in America and had never left its shores, it was only today that he felt he really belonged. And as the actress Whoopi Goldberg told it, she could finally put her suitcases down.
It seems impossible to overestimate the thud of this historical moment. Bunch, who is the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is scheduled to open on the Washington Mall in 2015, believes this moment will be good for the museum because the issue of race has been pushed to the fore.
"It will help Americans close the chasm. Especially for the baby-boomer generation, it calls into question the basic assumption that race will always divide us."
Bunch has always seen the museum as a place where America as a whole comes together to understand itself, through the African American experience. It's Obama's triumph, because race was never his text, though of course it was always present.
As some have suggested, we may now talk about BB and AB - Before Barack and After Barack. But Obama stands on the shoulders of those fighters before him. He didn't get there alone and the fight ahead is bigger than this one, albeit "special" man.
Last month I was told a story by Lonnie Bunch of the Smithsonian Institute. More than 40 years ago there was a picture of Abe Lincoln and George Washington above the blackboard of Bunch's primary school. The teacher proclaimed: "If you work hard this year you too can be the president." Bunch tells me he remembers thinking this was lie - "Until Barack Obama."
I was in New York during the presidential election and it was great to see people of every creed and colour celebrating. Unsurprisingly it was the sentiments of African Americans that were most striking. One young man said though he had been born in America and had never left its shores, it was only today that he felt he really belonged. And as the actress Whoopi Goldberg told it, she could finally put her suitcases down.
It seems impossible to overestimate the thud of this historical moment. Bunch, who is the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is scheduled to open on the Washington Mall in 2015, believes this moment will be good for the museum because the issue of race has been pushed to the fore.
"It will help Americans close the chasm. Especially for the baby-boomer generation, it calls into question the basic assumption that race will always divide us."
Bunch has always seen the museum as a place where America as a whole comes together to understand itself, through the African American experience. It's Obama's triumph, because race was never his text, though of course it was always present.
As some have suggested, we may now talk about BB and AB - Before Barack and After Barack. But Obama stands on the shoulders of those fighters before him. He didn't get there alone and the fight ahead is bigger than this one, albeit "special" man.
