USA: Realizing King's dreams, looking to Eleanor's wish

. TOKYO, Japan / The Asahi Shimbun / January 20, 2009 Japan Notebook Yoshibumi Wakamiya Having heard that a range of musicians who supported Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential election compiled an album, I bought a copy prior to the inauguration ceremony. The album is titled "Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement." It comprises 18 songs by prominent artists such as Stevie Wonder and Lionel Richie. The songs alone are worth listening to. But what sets the CD apart from others are recordings of Obama's speeches that are inserted throughout. The voice that speaks of hope for the future blends well with the music. Come to think of it, President John F. Kennedy's inauguration speech was also made into a record in tune to a chorus and made the hit chart when I was a student. Incidentally, Obama was born in 1961, the year of Kennedy's inauguration. It was a time when discrimination against African-Americans was openly practiced. The year before, Martin Luther King Jr., a driving force of the black liberation movement, was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, for holding a sit-in. It is said that Kennedy, then a presidential candidate, immediately phoned King's wife to offer words of encouragement and worked hard to have him released. In August 1963, during the Kennedy administration, King led the March on Washington on the occasion of the centennial of the abolition of slavery in the United States. A century had passed since the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln. But in many U.S. states, blacks were still not allowed to ride with whites on public transportation or eat in restaurants and attend the same schools. Some people even tried to stop blacks from voting in elections. When blacks protested, they could be arrested. Standing before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, King thundered: "One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination." The leading players of discrimination were state governments and the police. It was in this speech that King delivered the famous line "I have a dream." "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood," he said as he passionately reeled off his dreams one after another. Actually, the abovementioned CD also includes a recording of this part of the speech, which is very moving. By this time, Kennedy had already submitted to Congress a bill for the Civil Rights Act aimed at abolishing racial discrimination. He also met King at the White House. But three months later, in November, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The following year, the bill was made into law under the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy. King was assassinated in 1968. Eventually, King's seemingly unattainable dreams became etched in the mind of the young Obama. Properly speaking, President-elect Obama, who was born to a Kenyan father, an exchange student in the United States, and a white mother, is not a descendant of slaves. But he was a rare child of mixed blood born and raised in an age when marriage between blacks and whites was considered hideous and was even illegal in many states, as he writes in his autobiography "Dreams from My Father." Obama's wife, Michelle, who is going to be the first lady, is African-American and a descendant of a slave. Could King ever have imagined the day that such a couple would enter the White House? In his victory speech in Chicago on the night of Nov. 4, Obama referred to Ann Cooper, a black woman aged 106 who lives in Georgia. Obama also cited well-known incidents of racial discrimination among the many events witnessed in the past century by Cooper, referring to her as someone who "was born just a generation past slavery" and overlapped King's message that dreams will some day come true with the line "Yes we can." I heard that Cooper will also attend Obama's inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20. Let me cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 1 of the declaration states: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood." In Article 2, it denies "distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." In this regard, it serves as the Bible of human rights. The declaration was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 in recognition of the fact that disregard for human rights was behind the two world wars. Dec. 20, 2008, marked the 60th anniversary of the declaration. Obama's emergence can be thought of as a salute to commemorate the occasion. When I learned that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's wife Eleanor (1884-1962) played an instrumental role in putting together the declaration, it seemed all the more meaningful. As if to act as a substitute for her late husband, Eleanor, who attended the first U.N. General Assembly, was elected to chair the Human Rights Commission. This is partly because prominent male figures backed away from the position. The former first lady persevered and overcame the voices of intolerance. She ended up surprising those around her by cobbling together the 30-article declaration. I recently learned of the story behind its conception. The public looks to Obama, who faces a once-in-a-century economic crisis, as the second coming of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as it was the latter who steered the country out of the Great Depression. But that is not the only role expected of the new president, who was born to a Kenyan father and whose middle name is Hussein. He is expected to play the leading role in changing the world in which racial and religious confrontations continue to rage in defiance of the ideal expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If Eleanor were alive today, she would probably share the same sentiment. It would also be a way for the United States to redeem itself for having caused so much confusion around the world in this new century. * * * The author is an Asahi Shimbun columnist Copyright 2009 The Asahi Shimbun Company