This year marks the 45^th anniversary of one of the most horrific terrorist attacks Birmingham has ever suffered. The bomb detonated at the 16^th Street Baptist Church on 15 September 1963 killed four children and injured 22 others. A series of investigations over a period of 30 years eventually identified the perpetrators as members of the Ku Klux Klan.

This is the legacy of prejudice and discrimination in the United States. From the Jim Crow laws that kept schools and buses segregated to the lynchings and violence meted out to black people, the denial of civil and human rights to people from non-white backgrounds represents a dark period in American history. And while this country has had its fair share of prejudice and tension – and still does – its recent history hasn’t been marred by the same glaring injustices of legally enforced segregation or organised racial oppression.

It’s perhaps from this platform that our political and media commentators have looked down on America and asked whether its public is ready for a black President. It’s perhaps with the backing of this comparatively liberal history that they have felt entitled to urge Americans to strike a blow for equality and vote for the first black leader in its history. But a little more thought on their part would hopefully reveal that the current state of inequality in this country deprives us of a moral high ground.

Our segregation may not be state imposed – or not intentionally – but it exists nevertheless. Communities living parallel lives, massive inequalities in wealth, institutionalised racism: these are the problems and challenges facing us today, and that’s without the legacy that spurred the civil rights movement. In fact, this remarkable turnaround from the buses of Montgomery and the hoses of Alabama to the election of a Hawaiian President raises the question of why Britain seems so far away from producing a non-white leader.

So what lessons can our policy makers learn from the election of the first black President? Perhaps they would be wise to take heed of what Senator Obama did not do. He did not concern himself with the politics of representation. He did not seek to ‘speak’ for a particular group of people. The politics of the new Democrats extends beyond consultation exercises and gimmicky initiatives tinkering with the symptoms, and not the causes, of social exclusion.

All our political parties would do well to use this time to reflect on what they stand for. True equality will only come through empowerment, and empowerment requires our leaders to engage with the needs, concerns, and rights of ordinary people. If our leaders hear but don’t listen, the various strategies proudly set up by governing bodies to allow representatives from different groups to be consulted on policies are at best ineffective and at worst conducive to undeserved self-satisfaction.

And that is why we do not need to be naïve to believe that the election of Barack Obama is a victory for equality in America. Black people are still three times more likely to be unemployed, women more likely to be underpaid, and the children of poor parents more likely to be on minimum wage. All this is as true on the morning of Obama’s victory as it was in the months and years before.

But the real victory for equality last night is not that America voted in a black President, but that a politician, any politician, found the humanity and spirit to connect with ordinary voters. The real triumph is the electrifying reinvigoration of American politics. The real symbol of the American election is not Mr Obama, but those people who voted for the first time, inspired by the prospect for change.

That is the lesson for our political leaders – perhaps the lesson for us all.

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