Barack Obama's rise is an achievement that seems only possible in the US. This veteran foreign correspondent asks when other nations will dare to share the dreamhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/26/race-barack-obama-us-electionsMy political awakening began in the summer of 1968, when I was 10. Robert Kennedy had just been assassinated after winning the California primary. My father, a union representative and Kennedy backer in Detroit, was upset. I didn't really understand much about presidential politics, but my education began.
'Can a black man ever become the President?' I remember asking, somewhat innocently. My father thought for a while and then replied: 'Not in my lifetime. But it will probably happen in your lifetime. You'll live to see it.'
My dad died last year. And every day this year, since I've watched in wonderment at the unlikely ascent of Barack Obama - as a candidate, as the Democratic party nominee and now within reach of the White House - I keep thinking back to that conversation 40 years ago and wishing my dad had lived just a little bit longer to see progress that he only dreamt was possible.
My father grew up in the segregated south, in Charleston, under Jim Crow laws that didn't allow blacks to vote. He left as a young man, primarily so his children would have more opportunities, all the opportunities that America had to offer. And despite the racism he saw and experienced, he never lost his faith in that American dream. 'You can be anything you want to be,' was his constant refrain to me.
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