How Far We've Come

The presidential debates were last night - just to state the obvious. While the debate's 'winner' is being....well...debated, there is one point that can't be argued.

On September 30, 1962, James Meredith was escorted onto the grounds of Ole' Miss as the first black student to attend following forced desegregation. Riots, the National Guard, and two deaths later, the University stood with a reputation that would continue to haunt it - as NPR argues - to the present.

On October 26, 2008, Barack Obama approached the podium with the world watching. He would stand and debate with John McCain as the first black candidate for the United States. Forty six years prior hundreds of white students stood scowling, enraged, as a black man dared to enter their campus, American turned and watched, waiting to see the outcome. Yesterday, thousands of students and others welcomed a black man to their campus, thrilled that the candidates had chosen their school as a national stage.

Featured vehemently - even to the point of tiresome - in the debate was the term 'pork barrel spending.' Wikipedia defines the terms origins as "early in American history, when slaves were sometimes given a barrel of salt pork as a reward and had to compete among themselves to get their share of the handout."

And there they stood. Two men vying for one of the most powerful positions in the world. A nation sat waiting to hear what they had to say, but perhaps we had all learned something already.

Look how far we've come.