We Are Bound Together By Our Soul Food

Scenes like this are what I miss most about not being in the US right now.

When I saw this picture, I was instantly transfixed by the imagery. It's a photo of President Barack Obama ordering lunch at the
12 Bones Barbecue Restaurant in Ashville, North Carolina, during a recent weekend getaway. He had visited the spot during his campaign, and vowed to come back someday.

Here's why this picture takes my breath away. At 48, I can still call up vivid bits of Civil Right era drama. I can definitely remember segregation, and not being able to go inside certain stores, and being warned to stay out of certain neighborhoods, because of the color of my skin.

And then there were the harsh images that got seared on a kid's brain. Marchers being blasted by firehoses, angry mobs, snarling dogs, lunch counter protests. I remember that whenever my family took summer trips to cities like Memphis and St. Louis or Chicago or Indianapolis for Jehovah's Witness conventions, we always had to carry our own food and drink in picnic hampers. These days, you take off-ramp stops at Wendy's and KFC for granted in most parts of America, and the only color proprietors are interested in is green. Fifty years ago, most of the restaurants we drove past along the way wouldn't serve food to black people.

As I soaked up this recent image, I remembered that the actual lunch counter from the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's is in the Smithsonian Institution. Fifty years ago, four black college students sat down at that counter and refused to move unless they were served. Deep in my heart, I believe those young men must have felt something stirring deep in their hearts, something that couldn't be uprooted by fear. I know most people say they had no way of knowing their bold actions in the heat of the moment could lead to something profoundly historic. But I believe part of what those guys were feeling at the moment had to do with this photo of Barack Obama.

It's so astonishing that I've lived long enough to witness a black man ordering soul food at a lunch counter in North Carolina, and that black man is the most powerful man in the world, the President of my country. My home.

Even the way the young woman taking his order is smiling makes my heart sing! Every time I read about the racist hatred and disrespect being aimed at President Obama, a part of me is glad to be away from it. But now I can remember the shy smile of this blonde, pony-tailed young white woman, who was probably thrilled to be meeting the President of the United States, and I can start missing my home all over again.

Because every white southern American isn't a teabagger. Most of them would probably enjoy sitting down with this man over a cold glass of sweet tea.