Forty-five years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King gave a speech that went into the American canon as I Have a Dream.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'[...]

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Doctor King's fight isn't won by any means, and it's naive to believe that a political act, the nomination of Barack Obama, will exorcise the demons of racism in their entirety. Political acts can do many things, but they do not, as a rule, in an instant enlighten or transform complex societies.

Barack Obama could very well lose this election. But today, even as many Americans still stand in disbeliief and wonder at history unfolding before our eyes, America will do something new. And if he wins, as polls consistently indicate he will, my little 4-year-old niece, and children across America, will grow up in a world where it is unremarkable and normal that a black man is President.

Will that in itself be revolutionary? Maybe, maybe not. But if revolutions are defined as abolishing one perception of normalcy and replacing it with another, then the true revolution in our nation will only begin today. Where it will actually happen is in the living rooms of the nation, as night after night, a President Obama will speak to us, and for us, and it will be the most perfectly normal thing in the world.