On Obama's victory, Unitarian minister Robert Hardies danced with a multiracial crowd in DC streets that had burned 40 years ago.
Dancing in the Streets By the Reverend Robert M. Hardies
Dear Mr. President-Elect,
The activist Emma Goldman once said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” I couldn’t agree more.
That is why I was delighted to find myself on election night dancing on the streets of our nation’s capital in the midst of a pulsing mass of humanity. Minutes earlier in your acceptance speech you had reached out to an unprecedented diversity of Americans, “young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled.” My dance partners and I represented much of that diversity, and more.
The joy that drove our dancing was deeper than partisan glee or pent-up frustration after eight years of failed leadership. It sprang from the hope that after two centuries of struggle to perfect our Union, America’s promise and bounty might finally be available to all her people, and that Americans might at long last unite across the many differences that have divided us.
From the beginning of your campaign you gave voice to this gospel of reconciliation. You promised to be the leader not of “red” or “blue” America, but of the United States of America, and you called on Americans to fulfill the dream of our nation’s Founders—E Pluribus Unum, out of many one—by ending oppression and injustice and uniting as one people.
E Pluribus Unum may be America’s civic religion, but it is a manifestation of a more profound hope lodged deep within the human spirit. A hope expressed by all of our religious traditions. Christians call it atonement. Literally, at-one-ment. Jews call it Tikkun Olam. Dr. King called it the Beloved Community. It is a vision of the human family—of all Creation—reconciled and whole.
As you begin your presidency, our nation faces challenges ranging from recession to war to global warming. As we work together to solve these difficult problems, I ask that you also continue to exercise leadership toward this vision of national reconciliation by encouraging a dialogue on race, by helping forge alliances between divided communities, and by committing to specific acts of restorative justice, like the rebuilding of New Orleans.
I also ask that you invite the faith community to be a partner in this reconciling work. For too long, religion has been a wedge in American culture. Manipulated as pawns in the culture wars, faith communities helped fan the flames of division and acrimony. I believe we now stand ready to embrace the reconciliation and atonement that lie at the heart of our respective faith traditions.
Forty years ago on the same street as my election night dance party, a different crowd gathered, fueled not by hope but by anger and despair. In the wake of Dr. King’s assassination, rioters set fire to much of Fourteenth and U Streets in Washington, leaving physical and emotional scars that last to this day.
To dance at that same intersection on the night of the election of our nation’s first African American president was a sign of how far our nation has come, a signal that after 200-plus years we might yet perfect our Union. You understand better than most that your election is just the first step. The dance is only the beginning.
The Rev. Robert M. Hardies is Senior Minister of All Souls Church, Unitarian in Washington, DC.
