The White House Waits For Forrest Gump

The Old Reporter [translator’s note: the writer of the article] who started to travel the USA in the summer of 1950 remembers two emblematic events. Soon after Kennedy’s assassination, “La Stampa” editor Giulio De Benedetti sent me to the Deep South. Only a few were missing Camelot.

In Little Rock I interviewed Governor Faubus, the one who wanted to stop African-American students from attending white people’s school. He said, “They deserved that, too much presumption. They have everything, just like white students. Segregation? Lies.”

One day in Buckingham (Alabama) I took a seat in a restaurant. While waiting for the waiter to arrive I started to read a copy of Ebony, a glossy magazine written and read by black people.

Having finished reading and still waiting for someone to serve me, I called a waiter. “I would like to order lunch,” I said.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to use room service,” he answered.

“And why is that?”

“It’s obvious; you annoyed the staff by reading that magazine, since – thanks to God – we’re all white.” He bowed and left.

In Jackson (Mississippi), a Protestant Community forbade the black priests entrance to temples. Beyond professional curiosity, I decided to verify the “ukase” by asking a black priest to come with me, if he felt like doing it. He accepted and we went to a church with a lot of people following.

We approached the church by steep stairs made of fake Carrara marble. At the threshold was the pastor, a rich fabric dealer. “Hold it!” said the pastor to the black priest. “You cannot enter here, brother.”

Why? “Because this is our church, built with our money. A church only for us white men. Your companion can enter and pray with us because he’s white.”

I was ready to turn and get away, but the black priest asked me to stay. I attended the Mass for white people. It was way out of line, a sort of ritual soaked with the smell of wax.

Sixty years later, racism is in agony: a black man, Barack Hussein Obama, enters the White House. It’s a victory for the America of Hollywood, penicillin, jazz, petting, atomic weapons, research, moon dance, and oddities. Common-sense America, origin of Dewey’s pragmatism, won the election.

But the election of the first black president of the USA is most of all the consecration of the melting pot, which in turn modified the shape of a country fatigued by a rash post-colonial war.

The winner is a human metronome that managed to grow and act as an American. His school mates tell us that Barack was a shy guy, sometimes confused. Today he simply says with his gospel voice: “I’m a self-made man. Growing up I understood that all Americans have the same opportunity, as long as you believe in it.” (Remember Forrest Gump?)

The Great Nation that defeated Nazism offers possibility for anyone, but to make it and leave anonymity behind you need to pass through the narrowest eye of a needle. The new president managed to get appointed to a university chair and to the Senate passing through the hardest eye. One thing is a change of heart, another is figuring out that “we can.”

We’ll see if the young president will be able to find the right tools to realize the lucky slogan “Yes we can.”