A young country
Having reached the westernmost point of my journey, I am still struck by how young this country is, and by how many events that I had filed away as „historical“ actually took place only very recently.
The gold rush and the resulting development of the city of Sacramento – whose city centre still boasts a number of authentic Western-style houses – took place just over a hundred years ago.
I currently live in one of the few houses in San Francisco that survived the devastating earthquake of 1906 and the fires that destroyed almost the entire city.
Yesterday I told a girl about Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Strike and Martin Luther King… that wasn’t even a lifetime ago… I even once met MLK Jr.’s assistant – whatever his name is here.
I can now understand better why Obama so often points out in his speeches – as he did recently at the university in Texas – that the nation is still a work in progress. He does so because it is true. And because, unlike in countries that are already more firmly established, there is still so much more possible here, and we need people who will make the most of these opportunities for the good of all.
It’s lovely to read about your trip to the USA!!!
Yes, it’s really easy to forget that – the nation has only just begun to understand its own boundaries, and that’s also part of an important historical experience. Learning from history, as Gorbachev says, is only possible where people have actually lived through history, and that history really isn’t very long, dating back only to the conquest of America.