Barack Obama's nomination cheered by local racial pioneers

While Barack Obama made glorious history accepting the nomination as the Democratic candidate for president of the United States, we magnified the Lord with the couple who made glorious racial history in Arlington Heights.

With Champagne and lemon curd cookies and unsalted peanuts, we celebrated with Nova and Emmanuel Thompson the vindication of their courage when they pioneered racial equality in our village. They were the first black couple to move into this white suburb.

Sitting in front of the Thompsons' television set listening to Barack Obama, I was hugely conscious that their move to Arlington Heights was one building block in the phenomenon that we were witnessing together.

Barack Obama has worked mightily to lead the Democrats. But he didn't work alone. In the words of Sir Isaac Newton, he got where he is "by standing on the shoulders of giants." There were the "big giants" like President Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., President Lyndon Johnson, Jesse Jackson, the Freedom Bus Riders, the college kids who sat in at lunch counters, the people who stood up to Bull Connor, and those black children who walked the gauntlet between screaming white neighbors as they tried to go to school.

But there were also thousands of "little giants" who made Barack Obama possible. People like the Thompsons all over the country who integrated neighborhoods, the fair housing advocates who helped them, and the thousands who resonated with Dr. King's "Dream" speech at the Washington mall.

Our Brooklyn daughter remembers the Thompsons as "very brave." that day in 1966 when we first met them. Notified of their move-in date by the Evanston fair housing group, I said to my husband, "Go over and invite them to dinner tonight. But go on your bicycle so you don't intimidate them." He did, and they agreed to come.

When the Thompsons arrived that evening with their two school age children, they immediately won our hearts by admiring the wall of pictures in our living room, water colors, drawings, etchings, woodcuts and photos that our children had done. What better entree to parents' hearts.

The Thompson children were like Barack Obama, sharing a father from Africa and a mother from Kansas. They have been very successful. One of my favorite stories dates to the days when their son, Anthony Thompson, was chief financial officer for a major U.S. pharmaceutical company on the Pacific Rim. He was living in Manila.

On the occasion of a conference at Deerpath Inn in Lake Forest, the Thompsons offered Anthony one of their cars to use during his stay. "Thanks," he said casually, "But I have a limo at my disposal."

I said to Nova, "Could you have believed when you were a debater in high school and couldn't join your team at dinner in a restaurant after a tournament because you were black that you would have a son at the Deerpath Inn some day with a limo at his disposal?"

What a moment. It's almost as impossible to believe as Barack Obama poised in a limo to ride into the White House.