![]() ![]() I remember so many people saying after Obama was elected that the country had entered this post-racial era but, I just knew that was a fallacy because the divide between Black and White America, in particular, was so great. It was a hopeful time but, also, a bittersweet time for me personally. Here’s a man who survived the Great Depression, World War II, and Jim Crow, and he got to witness the elections of America’s first black president. He was alive when Obama was elected president, though he couldn’t remember many of the details. I knew how hopeful my father was and convinced him to vote early. When he was in the hospital, the doctor asked him, to see if he was lucid: “Who’s the president?” And, in a croaky voice, he replied “Barack Obama!” This was in October, so the doctor responded with “Oh, not quite yet.” I knew how much he wanted Obama to be president. ![]() ![]() It was also very personal for me because, in November of 2008, my father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. There was such vitriol but, there was also this sense of hope. The country was just so deeply divided at that time-which it still is, particularly around racial lines. I wrote it at the beginning of President Obama’s second term, but I was always thinking back to his first election. The election of Obama was my inspiration for the book. Your book begins on Barack Obama’s election night. ![]()
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