Academic

My children woke up on Tuesday excited about the future. My 6-year old daughter, Bethany, asked, ?Is today the day when Barack Obama will become president??

I looked at her and the glow in her eyes. I thought, ?How beautiful! At just 6, she may see what I never imagined could happen in my lifetime - the first black president of the United States. An entire generation of children may grow up seeing a black president as completely routine.?

I am 35, a black woman who grew up in a world shaped by the civil-rights movement. I am married to a white man, with whom I have three children. I interact daily with friends and work colleagues of different races. I am a law professor who teaches Critical Race Theory and writes about race in my scholarship.

I have participated in each of these endeavors, always with the hope that our nation will overcome the burden of attitudinal and institutionalized racism. But, even as my life has been about improving race relations, I never really believed in our ability as a country to overcome racism, except in two instances.

The first occurred when I was 17 and attending a camp called Anytown U.S.A. near Houston, Texas. The camp brought students of different backgrounds together for a week of education, conversation and bonding to promote understanding and unity among the nation?s future leaders. By the end, we felt like family, and our worlds, even if just for a moment, were transformed.

I can still hear the singing: ?Anytown, Anytown, yellow, black, white, red, or brown! Makes no difference when you come down to Anytown, our Anytown.? I left Anytown refreshed and anxious to change the world, with a real faith in our power, and in particular, the power of white Americans, to overcome internalized racism.

But that feeling slowly died, and I never had it again until January 3, 2008, the day of the Iowa caucuses. I live in a college town with a population of fewer than 10,000 people, and while I expected Obama would do well at the college caucus site, with its students and professors, I did not expect as much from my site in the high school gym. There, I spotted only three other brown faces - a black mother, her teenage son and a brown-skinned man, none of whom I had ever met.

I was enveloped in a sea of whiteness, and when the caucus organizers asked us to step into the corner of the candidate whom we were supporting, I expected the room to divide fairly equally between Clinton, Edwards and Obama.

I was shocked and thrilled when what seemed like the whole room shifted for Obama. As we squeezed against one another, I could hardly hold my excitement. Next to me was one of the other brown faces in the room, a doctor who had moved here from South Africa many years ago. He told me about how he, a colored man, had voted for the first time in South Africa in 1994, when coloreds and blacks were finally allowed to vote with whites in that country. He then pointed at the Obama sign that glued all of us supporters together and said, ?He is the hope.? That was the second time I truly believed.

Now, there is a third time, Nov. 4, 2008. Before that day, I had been an ardent supporter of Obama. I donated more money to his campaign than I had to any other. I called potential voters for Obama. I walked in town with signs for him. Though I wanted to believe that Obama would become president, I always held back my hope just a little, terrified that if he lost, I would lose the faith from Anytown that I had just regained in January.But on election night, when CNN declared Obama the winner of the presidency, I exhaled, smiled and began to write, ?Perhaps, the third time is the charm…?