“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”
These words from President Lincoln”s “Gettysburg Address” profoundly resound again as we prepare to celebrate his 200th birthday and we await the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of these United States of America. The profoundness of this is personal to me!
In 1960, I was an idealistic 18 year old college freshman when John Kennedy was elected President. As an Irish-Catholic youth, my enthusiasm for that historical election was astronomical. A man of my own culture faced the test of religious tolerance in America and was elected President.
I was 21 when President Kennedy was assassinated. When Martin Luther King was killed in April of 1968, I was a volunteer campaign worker for Bobby Kennedy, who as his brother John was assassinated in June of 1968. From the age of 18 to my 24th year, all of my heroes in our nation”s quest for liberty and equality were killed.
The idealism and hope I held for my nation in my youth were sorely dashed by those horrific crimes.
With the election of Barack Obama that idealistic hope I held so many years ago for these United States of America was restored. I have not felt this good about a presidential election in 48 years.
I told my son on election night that this is a “new America and a new World.”
As we and President-elect Obama face the enormous challenges of our nation and the world, let us all pray in our own way for the fulfillment of Lincoln”s closing words at Gettysburg, “that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Tommy K. Harty
Kelseyville
