Kennedy: For many African-Americans, change has finally arrived

DENVER — Born in 1961, Barack Obama is our first presidential candidate to come of age in the 1970s.

On a night staged for TV before a rock-star-worthy crowd, he put on his own ’70s show Thursday.

You might call it Eight is Enough.

For 45 minutes as the headline act before one of the largest crowds in convention history — 84,000 believers, or just fans — Obama spelled out the facts of his life and the future ahead if he is elected president.

"We love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight," he said, trying to connect Republican John McCain to the two terms of President Bush. He even told voters to say, "Eight is enough."

Look, it’s easy to make fun of something as overproduced as the Democratic convention. Those faux Greek columns on stage looked like they came out of a closed Dallas strip joint. I doubt anyone seeks political guidance from the Black Eyed Peas.

But then I talked with some Fort Worth neighbors this week.

They’re Democrats.

But they weren’t just here for the show.

When I saw tears running down a cheek on the face of state Rep. Marc Veasey, 37, I realized that this event was not just hype.

"Change" was the one-word slogan on the signs waving in the crowd.

But for thousands of African-Americans across Fort Worth, Texas and America, Obama’s nomination means something has genuinely changed already across the nation, something that they had feared might never change.

Veasey talked wistfully about how his grandmother, Ressie English, 97, of Fort Worth, moved from Navarro County in the 1950s, back when restaurants along U.S. 287 still posted signs reading, "No [n-word]."

Along the way, his grandparents passed through Mansfield, where white residents rioted to keep African-American students out of local schools. In Fort Worth, his grandparents lived in a Lake Como neighborhood separated from white homes by the mile-long, brick "Ridglea wall."

When the Leonards superstore downtown had hired its first African-American salesclerk, they went just to see her.

Now, a man of color has won his party’s nomination to run for leader of the free world.

"When Obama is elected, that means nobody will ever ask again, 'Do you think Texas is ready?’ " Veasey said.

"Just because he’s running, people will be more confident about African-Americans in leadership roles."

Fort Worth delegate Emma Allen, retired from Lockheed Martin, said her schoolteacher family in rural Lee County never imagined this moment.

She remembers watching 1960s civil rights marches when even the TV picture was black and white.

"To me, this is a tremendous moment for young people," she said. "They never knew segregation. But they know what we went through to get to Barack Obama."

On Nov. 4, he might have another old TV show to tell us about.

Remember Who’s the Boss?