The ink is black
The page is white
Together we learn to read and write
The child is black
The child is white
The whole world looks upon the sight
The beautiful sight
And now a child can understand
That this is the law of all the land
All the land
The world is black
The world is white
It turns by day and then by night
The child is black
The child is white
Together they grow to see the light
To see the light
And now at last we plainly see
We’ll have a dance of liberty
The world is black
The world is white
It turns by day and then by night
The child is black
The child is white
The whole world looks upon the sight
The beautiful sight
The world is black
The world is white
It turns by day and the by night
The child is black
The child is white
Together they grow to see the light
To see the light
This song by Three Dog Night hit the top of the charts when I was 4 years old in 1972. It was on the radio constantly and I remember vividly staring out the window of our station wagon and listening to the words intently. My parents taught us to look beyond our somewhat segregated, racist community and emphasized the beliefs of Martin Luther King Jr. and John Kennedy. Somehow all of that, this song, and the free thinking of the 70’s created a picture in my mind and when I stared out the window, I “saw” what the song suggested. I even remember having some remote thought of “I am a child, and one day this will change because we are being taught differently.”
When I shot these photos, President Obama was just beginning his campaign when he visited a small ice cream shop in Oak Park, Ill. I didn’t have a press pass and I remember pressing myself up against the glass and trying to shoot between people who were strategically placed around the window to block the view. I came back to the office late, edited my photos and placed several on the desk of an editor. I heard the next day that she supposedly “laughed” at my efforts. I was very upset.
But now it does not matter. A young Barack was somewhere on the globe when that Three Dog Night song came out and I feel so lucky and privileged to have documented a new reality that my generation helped to create. That editor has since left the business and it goes to stand that no matter how you feel about his politics or presidency, if you can’t see the magnitude of that moment as a citizen – let alone the editor of a newspaper – then you my friend, are dead. 
