There were echoes of Holt Street in Jones’ victory address Tuesday night. Already he was speaking of “finding common ground and reaching across.” He said, “We have work to do in this state. To build those bridges within this state. To reach across with those that didn’t vote for us to try to find that common ground.
“I’m pledging to do that tonight,” Jones said, “but I will tell you, tonight is a night for rejoicing because as Dr. King said, as Dr. King liked to quote, ‘The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.’”
White people were thanking black women on Twitter. God is a black woman, someone said. “Trust a black woman” and “Let black women run things” were commonly expressed sentiments. Black pixie dust was falling all over liberal America.
But DeJuana Thompson and Carissa Crayton know the real story: There is nothing magical about the straightforward, unlovely work of organizing that goes into black political achievement.
“This is not something that I just happened upon. This is something I learned. This is something that I worked on. I’ve been in my field for 15 years,” said Thompson. “That is not magic, that is perseverance. That is the embodiment of investing in myself and in my craft. And that craft — just like so many other black women — our craft is creating spaces for other people to be successful.”