Prometheus 6

Obama described the community as a place where a child's destiny could be "determined before he takes his first step" and one where a little girl's future can be "confined to the neighborhood she was born into." It sounded like the Washington in which Grimes labored.

True, Grimes's foe was slavery. More than a century later, Obama's is urban poverty.

But Obama's description of poverty -- poverty "so difficult to escape; it's isolating and it's everywhere" -- sounds like slavery to me.

Abolitionists, Then and Now
By Colbert I. King
Saturday, July 21, 2007; A13

Washington, D.C., is one of those places where the sweep of centuries can be compressed into a single day. Wednesday provided an example. Two events came together with a commonality easily overlooked in a city eternally restless for breaking news: the commemoration downtown of D.C. abolitionist Leonard A. Grimes and the unveiling of Sen. Barack Obama's urban policy agenda across town in Southeast.