Change

There are blog pages and write-ups aplenty congratulating America on electing its first African American president. Pundits spend hours on the TV and gallons of ink on the page dissecting everything and anything to absolutely nothing - from the shifting demographic of the American population... to the irrelevancy of the "Bradley Effect". Everything related to the campaign is analysed-digested-regurgitated-and-reanalysed again: from the would've-n-could've of the McCain/Palin ticket... to the "could it be possible" resuscitation of an embattled and rattled GOP... to the "what-type-of-puppy" will move into the White House with the Obama kids come January next year.

Yes admittedly it is all a little mad, but the riverman~~~ believes that having gone through the despondency of the last 8 years, the world fairly deserves to happily go Obama-crazy for a little while. The man has come to symbolise so much of what the world around America hopes America to be.

I remember as I type out this post how as the state-by-state results came in on election night, my finger-nails correspondingly grew shorter and shorter. When Ohio's results came in, my mobile phone started ringing. I picked it up and the voice of an obviously over-caffeinated friend from London blurted out anxiously, "What do you think? Has he won?".

The texts and calls came fast and furious after Virginia's results slammed home. Then an almost dreamlike sequence of events followed: the exuberant roar of the crowd from Times Square; the flourished wave of the stars and stripes over the sea of people in Chicago's Grant Park; the close-up of tears streaming down Rev. Jessee Jackson's face; the wild screams of 'Yes we did!" from the students from George Washington University; people, both white and black and every colour in between hugging each other on the streets of Harlem; the choked-up speechlessness of some of the anchors on CNN and MSNBC... and all the while those clear fluorescent words "PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA" flashing out from the alert titles on every news network.

As the world waited for the future 44th President of the United States to get on stage for his acceptance speech, the news channel I was watching put on a recording of that historic speech by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963, as he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was hard not to get choked up as his words rang out: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."".

From the hopeful optimism and faith of a Baptist minister from Atlanta, Georgia in 1963 to an acceptance speech by an African American president-elect in 2008... America, you have come a long way!

Just to illustrate, let's go back in time...

On April 16, 1963, a 22 year-old man dressed in worn out denims walked onto a stage in Gerde's Folk City in the West Village with his folk guitar and harmonica. As the mumble of the crowd around him fell into whisper, he strummed into the air what was probably one of the most iconic songs of the 60's civil rights movement. The melody was inspired by an old Negro spiritual. The lyric was a plea made on behalf of generations of people denied a voice. How many roads must a man walk down, before they call him a man How many seas must a white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand How many times must the cannonballs fly, before they are forever banned.*The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.* How many years must a mountain exist, before it is washed to the sea. How many years can some people exist, before they're allowed to be free. How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see. How many times must a man look up, before he can see the sky. How many years must one man have, before he can hear people cry. How many deaths will it take till he knows, that too many people have died.

Today when I listen to Bob Dylan's immortal "Blowing in the wind" I still find it extraordinary that a song that stabs so truthfully into the pain and injustice in racism came from a white man. And yet, why indeed should this be remarkable? Truth is colour-blind... and the questions asked in that song demand and just as surely provoke a truthful answer.

On October 8, 1963, an American Gospel, R&B and Soul singer named Sam Cooke and his band tried to register at a "whites only" motel in Shreveport, Louisiana. They were summarily arrested for disturbing the peace. Sam had heard Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" a number of months before, and had been so impressed that after the incident at Shreveport, that he pushed himself out of apathy and penned the words of another immortal song called "A change is gonna come".

Within the stirring heartbeat of Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind", was a powerful question: "How many years can some people exist, before they're allowed to be free?". Sam Cooke responded to Dylan's question in his song "A change is gonna come", by insisting that even while change had been "a long, long time coming", nevertheless change would be inevitable in the end. Despite the steadfast hope that "change" would eventually come, the weariness of waiting for what seemed to take forever to be granted is evident in his words.

I was born by the river in a little tent. Oh and just like the river I've been running ever since. It's been a long, a long time coming. But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will. It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky It's been a long, a long time coming But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will. I go to the movie and I go downtown. Somebody keep telling me don't hang around. It's been a long, a long time coming. But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will. Then I go to my brother, And I say brother help me please. But he winds up knocking me back down on my knees. There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long. But now I think I'm able to carry on. It's been a long, a long time coming. But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will...

Both "Blowing in the Wind" and "A change is gonna come" constituted and began an extraordinary form of social dialogue via music with regards to race relations in America. Black American musicians from Otis Redding to Aretha Franklin to Al Green to Seal have steadily interpreted and reinterpreted Sam Cooke's response to Dylan's question for each new generation. And so, this indefatigable dialogue has continued by way of tentative question to hopeful answer from 1963 up to the present.

And so from 1963 Reader, we come to 2008.

On November 4, 2008, close to midnight, Barack Obama stood on the stage facing a 200,000 strong crowd in Chicago, and with a clear voice declared emphatically that "It's been a long time coming, but tonight,... change has come to America". Reader, as I listened to these words, a chill literally ran up my spine. The words that Barack Obama shouted into the night air on the 4th of November were a mirror of Sam Cooke's original words in 1963, but this time voiced with an air of decisiveness, certainty and finality. This was a jubilant shout of victory and no longer a weary prayer. Gone was that tinge of desperation... that hunger half dowsed in melancholy. Almost 45 years later, the world saw a unified America... white and black, shoulder to shoulder and with both sides of the civil rights dialogue finally responding in concert to the question that had been insistently blowing in the wind, from that evening in Gerde's Folk City in 1963 to the present day.

And as I watched the crowds chant "Yes We Can!" into the early hours of the morning after, the riverman~~~ believes, those three simple words, whether indirectly or purposefully, were that long awaited final triumphant reply to the question Dylan asked so long ago.

Well done America, and congratulations!

~~~