Barack Obama and Bobby Kennedy

Barack Obama is currently 12 delegates away from officially becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for the president of the United States. Obama need 2118 delegates to secure the nomination. Thanks to a carefully choreographed rollout of super delegates, he will go over the top when primary results come out in the last two primaries of South Dakota and Montana tonight.

Today the Democratic party will have as its nominee an African American candidate. And in November we may have America’s first African American president. That in itself is history. Today also resumes a journey that was interrupted nearly 40 years ago to the day when, in the early morning hours of June 6 1968, Bobby Kennedy was taken away from America and the world.

Barack Obama carries on his shoulders the aspirations of not only the African American community of America, but of a generation who were denied their dreams four decades ago, and a new generation which now dares to dream some of those same dreams again. It is a tremendous burden on Obama’s shoulders, but it is one that we the citizenry can help him carry. The challenges lie ahead - from here to the general election in November, and beyond.

For Barack Obama and for all of us who are walking this historic journey with him, Bobby Kennedy’s words are worth remembering:

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

That is my hope today, on the cusp of history.