THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH

WHEN SUPER TUESDAY commentators called it "no surprise" that Barack Obama had won the Democratic primaries in Georgia and Alabama, we thought that Sens. Herman Talmadge and Richard Russell, those Georgia segregationists who for so long stood in the way of civil rights, must be spinning in their graves.

A little historical perspective.

Just 50 years ago in Alabama and Georgia, or anywhere in the Old South, Barack Obama's parents, a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, could not have wed - interracial marriage was against the law. For even flirting with a white woman, Obama's father could have been taken from his home and lynched, as were thousands of blacks in our nation's history.

A presidential campaign by a black man? Unthinkable. Blacks had a hard time even registering to vote. Mississippi Freedom Summer was years away. No Freedom Rides yet. No sit-ins.

Although Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision desegregating public schools, was handed down in 1954, schools in Alabama and Georgia were still segregated.

Fifty years ago, Jim Crow was the law in the South. If Barack Obama were campaigning in Georgia or Alabama, he wouldn't have been served in a "white" restaurant. Couldn't have stayed in a "white" hotel.

Would've had to wait until he found a "colored" toilet. Wouldn't have been permitted to drink from a "whites only" water fountain.

Segregationists used every tactic they could, including violence, to stop the civil-rights movement. The Ku Klux Klan rode through the night spreading terror, with the tacit complicity of the local sheriff. White Citizens Councils openly retaliated against blacks suspected of even questioning segregation. Tenant farmers were kicked off the land they worked, others found themselves unemployable for the same offense.

Alabama and Georgia elected officials were virtually all segregationists. And all Democrats.

Today, blacks are a significant percent of the electorate in Georgia and Alabama. The Old South has hundreds of black elected officials - sheriffs, legislators and members of Congress.

And Barack Obama got the votes of blacks AND whites in Alabama, Georgia and elsewhere.

WE KNOW THERE'S still a long way to go in race relations in this country.

Much still needs to be done. But to say that it's "no surprise" that an African-American won state elections for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, in Alabama and Georgia in particular, is to forget how far we've come.

For those of us who have been around long enough to know both ends of this continuum, it is awe-inspiring. Barack Obama is campaigning on the idea of "change." In many ways, he's already succeeded.*