As our bus rolled through
the white neighborhoods, I
imagined how good life must
be for the children who lived
there. But my daydreaming
was often interrupted by the
unsettling sight of white kids
hopping around, scratching
their ribs and pointing at us.
The brute reality of segregation was suddenly in full
view, and the message was
clear: we were inferior—not
fully human, if their monkey
dance was to be believed.
Even moving to Harlem
when I was nine did not
end this blunt, demoralizing
attack on our collective psyche. The
rejections and injustices, though more
sophisticated, simply continued.
Then came Jackie Robinson. When
he broke the color line with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, I got the first
inkling that my status as a second-class American would not last forever.
Robinson’s stoicism, skill, and grace
emboldened me, and the adulation he
got from legions of whites who once
were hostile to blacks proved, at least to
my 15-year-old mind, that the country
was changing. Yet by the mid-’50s I was
weary again: hard racism still plagued
the South, while the North was witnessing the slow-motion disintegration
of institutions, such as public housing
and urban policing, designed to serve
the black poor. These were the failures
LIVING LEGAC Y
Roger Wilkins
says his daughter
Elizabeth, with
him,above,helped
open his eyes to
the promise in
Obama, who fueled
activism across all
age groups during
his campaign.
that would lead to the urban riots of the
1960s—failures that got me wondering
more often than not: What kind of republic were we really keeping?
Elizabeth, who was born in 1983,
almost two decades after the heyday
of the Civil Rights Movement, had a
much less pessimistic view of America
than I did in 1957, when I was 25. Born
to parents who each had law degrees
and were both university professors,
she studied at integrated schools and
spent her days with white and black
teachers and classmates in rich, nur-
turing environments. As a young, self-
confident adult, she moved about in an
America that, while not nearly perfect,
had gone well beyond a mere embrace
of Jackie Robin-
son. Through sit-
ins and marches,
many blacks and
whites had come
together to move
the nation’s con-
sciousness and
force sweeping legal changes that
helped ease indignities and steady the
playing field for people of color. And
though much work had yet to be done
by the time Elizabeth was born, she
grew up knowing her own family con-
tributed significantly to that progress,
from her great-uncle Roy Wilkins,
Born in 1983, Elizabeth
had a much less pessimistic
view of America than I did in
1957, when I was 25.
who headed the NAACP for 22
years and stood proudly on the
steps of the Lincoln Memorial
during the historic March on
Washington; to her grandmother Helen Wilkins Claytor, who,
as the first black woman to lead
the national YWCA, made ending racism the organization’s
highest priority; to her father,
who did civil rights work in the
Justice Department during the
Lyndon Johnson administration after that.
This was a family history
that inspired Elizabeth deeply,
for a new black guy—and certainly not
in the numbers that would make him
a serious candidate.” But Elizabeth
believed, fervently, that when people
present themselves honestly, with wisdom and passion, they will be judged
on their merits. She believed Obama, a
brilliant, tenacious, cool tactician with
compassion for the poor and energy to
lead, would be judged for those qualities, and that his biracial background
might even be a plus—a symbol of hope,
the embodiment of divided worlds
coming together. Yet true to her character, Elizabeth asked wise friends
what they thought, too, and she quickly
learned her idealism had not been
totally misplaced. One white mentor
told her about his 80-year-old mother
who had never held “enlightened”
racial views but who was ecstatic about
the Obama candidacy and was giving
strong support because she wanted to
feel a new pride in her country. And
so when Elizabeth asked me whether
she should keep the good job she had
FROM TOP: COURTESY OF ROGER WILKINS; KEITH BEDFORD
24
