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years ago, I was standing in a noisy bar in Boston near where the Democratic Convention was being held. Boisterous Democrats were getting revved up -- and oiled up -- for the evening’s

post-convention parties. Suddenly, the place went dead quiet as all faces looked up at the TV screens. “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of

America,” said a strong, young voice on the screens. “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” The

year’s Democratic gathering. In his drama and promise, he even overshadowed John Kerry, whom the party had chosen as its nominee for president. You even started to hear some "Obama for

President" calls, but none of them were really taken very seriously at the time. Even when the young senator from Illinois announced his presidential campaign two years later, he was

still not considered a likely nominee. He had little experience in national politics, and he was going up against the lions (and the lioness) of the Democratic Party. I thought it be a good

trial run for Obama, who would have great promise later on. My old friend and political interlocutor Andrew Young, a civil rights hero and America’s first black ambassador to the UN,

remarked: “I want Barack Obama for president ... in 2016.” And, like Andy, I supported Hillary Clinton. I doubted that a Salvationist campaign could reach beyond young people and the party’s

liberal elite. Surely, it could not face down the formidable Republican destruction machine. But now the impossible dream is about to come to pass. Andrew Young and I were off by eight

years. I only wish that Martin Luther King Jr. -- Young’s boss in the civil rights movement and the man who inspired me in 1960 as a young activist in North Carolina -- were here to witness

the triumph. Dr. King’s great dream was of “the beloved community.” This was a concept the civil rights leader took from philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce. King, a student of Mahatma

Gandhi, saw it as a global goal in which everyone shares in the Earth’s wealth and “love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred.” As utopian as his idea sounds, King always insisted it

could be realized even in a world where human conflict was a reality. For years, I believed the beloved community was an achievable concept, and then I fell away from that belief. But,

today, when we see the rush of emotional support for young Obama --100,000 people at a single rally in Missouri! -- I begin to think the idea still has life. Certainly the rest of the world

-- and especially Europe -- has begun to invest in Obama. To them, as a young American born of a white mother and a Kenyan father, Obama embodies their unexpressed and long-suppressed dreams

of lambs lying down with lions. But let’s be realistic. President Obama will inherit a country -- and a world -- in turmoil. He will have wars to run and not just to end. He has already

donned the mantel of terrorism fighter, for example, by promising to take the battle to the bad guys in northwest Pakistan. (Ironically enough, the Bush administration has already begun

practicing the "Obama doctrine" by attacking terrorists in sanctuaries where the Pakistanis are helpless to act). Obama will face -- and make -- hard choices that cost lives. As I

write this at a Caribou Café in Washington, everyone else on the terrace is black. At the next table, three immigrants are having an animated, joyful conversation. I think they are speaking

Amharic, the language of Ethiopia (Washington is the largest Ethiopian town outside Addis Ababa). I hear the word “Obama” from time to time, which means that they are also talking politics

on the eve of history. This scene reminds me of how far the United States has come in the past 25 years in terms of diversity and immigration. And though we have ghettos and crime and racial

separation, we are still struggling and working to solve the problem. Obama’s election moves us one big step further along this continuum. In only a few hours now, America will take the

step I never expected to see in my lifetime. It will give old "civil rightsers" and young people who never saw King hope and a reason to embrace activism. And, when it happens, I

will no doubt have some tears in my eyes.