We Cannot Walk Alone
"'We cannot walk alone.'
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"I hadn't remembered these particular lines from Dr. King's speech. But as I read them aloud during practice, I found myself thinking about all the older Black volunteers I'd met in our offices around the country, the way they'd clutch my hands and tell me they never thought they'd see the day when a Black man would have a real chance to be president.
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"I thought about the seniors who wrote to me to explain how they had woken up early and been first in line to vote during the primaries, even though they were sick or disabled.
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"I thought about the doormen, janitors, secretaries, clerks, dishwashers, and drivers I encountered anytime I passed through hotels, conference centers, or office buildings—how they'd wave or give me a thumbs-up or shyly accept a handshake, Black men and women of a certain age who, like Michelle's parents, had quietly done what was necessary to feed their families and send their kids to school, and now recognized in me some of the fruits of their labor.
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"I thought of all the people who had sat in jail or joined the March on Washington forty, fifty years ago, and wondered how they would feel when I walked out onto that stage in Denver—how much they had seen their country transformed, and how far things still were from what they had hoped." — Barack Obama; A Promised Land, p. 167
Philip Montgomery
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