November 6, 2008

With Obama, a mountaintop moment for the black church

by Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service

WASHINGTON — The Rev. Walter Fauntroy marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., served as the District of Columbia’s delegate to Congress and preached for decades from his Washington pulpit for greater civil rights.

But on Nov. 4, when Sen. Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected to the White House, it was “the moment I’ve waited for 40 years.”

Forty years after King’s death, and 45 years after King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Fauntroy and other veterans of the civil rights struggle say the black church in America played a key role in leading the country to a day when Obama could be elected president.
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