For All Those I Wish Could See This Day
Readers of this blog know that my uncle Daniel Levenson died early this year, in September. He was a good man, and I miss him, especially today. Throughout his professional life he put in the time, the energy, and whatever else it took on the right side of critical struggles, from the anti-war movement to the fight against hunger. He was a passionate Democrat and deeply hoped to see Barack Obama elected President. He didn’t.
My mother died more than ten years ago. She too was a happily partisan Democrat, having adopted US citizenship a few years after she emigrated from England so that she would never again feel the frustration of not being able to vote that she endured after desperately wanting to cast her ballot for Adlai Stephenson in 1956. She too would have loved to have had a chance to vote for Barack Obama, and I would have pitied the poor undecided wretch who came up against her posh accent and absolute conviction in any canvassing call.
My father, Joseph Levenson, died when I was ten. He was a World War II veteran — he floated all the way from the west coast to Tokyo Bay between 1942-1946. He became a historian of China after the war, and one of the members of the academy who early recognized the folly of the Vietnam War. He too would have loved this day — and in particular he would have loved the grace of language, the tragically rare political gift Obama has displayed consistently throughout this campaign, of being able to articulate both thoughtfully and beautifully, poetically, complex and important ideas.
They should all have seen this day, they and I’m sure many others. For them, let Martin speak:
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This entry was posted on November 5, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under memory, Obama, Politics, words mattter. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: Barack Obama, Family, Martin Luther King, memory, Politics
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November 29, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Professor Tom, I completely missed this post the first time. I think that many of us share folks like yours who would’ve loved to vote for Mr Obama. Lovely memories of some lovely people done as only Prof Levenson could do.