Faces of Black America at a very fine hour

It's quite a ride to work for a black newspaper during the Obama campaign. It's interesting today to hear folks' take on Michelle Obama's speech last night and its reception by the various televised talking heads.

CNN did an all-Republican panel to balance out the hours of self-serving Democratic fanfare. The hostile and often insulting remarks by these Republican hatchet men and women really put off a lot of black folks, but that's no surprise. Somebody like Ben Stein is not about to try to divine the black psyche and proceed accordingly, in hopes of picking off a few fence-sitters. These were tirades by, and for, the white majority.

The St. Louis American has Alvin A. Reid reporting live from Denver for Thursday's paper, with several daily updates on our website. It's a shame that Wiley Price, who has worked so closely with the Obama campaign and took perhaps the single most famous (in Black America) photo of the campaign thus far, didn't get his paperwork together on time and is stuck here in St. Louis.

However, St. Louis-based UPI photojournalist Bill Greenblatt lets us use his work, as long as we credit him properly. He had a great angle on the action in Denver last night. I have a posted a set of Bill's photos from Denver on my Flickr site. They are not mine to give, so (please) no one take them from me; just enjoy them for yourself or share a link. I think they capture Black America at a fine hour. As a black Teamster said recently during their national convention in St. Louis, "This is not a class of people knocking at the door. This is a class of people sitting at the head of the table."

I as a white guy who has worked under the leadership and guidance of a long line of black men - Eugene B. Redmond, K. Curtis Lyle, Gerald Early, Nymah Kumah, Noble Obani-Nwibari, Donald M. Suggs - that's cool by me.

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Photo is of Julia Hicks, a delegate from Colorado, as she stands for the opening ceremonies at the start of the Democratic Convention at the Pepsi Center in Denver, CO on August 25, 2008. (UPI Photo/Bill Greenblatt)