Whose Tube? Barack is Ichiban.

So another candle was lit in the Temple of Black Firsts, for Barack, who already has been the first black president, albeit the first black president of Harvard Law Review.  Upstairs at the Crispus Attucks Revolutionary Rooftop Bar, all the political saints gathered to smile down.  John Mercer Langston, the first elected official lifted his glass in a toast, as Shirley Chisholm, first black female representative the first woman to run for president smiled a special smile, so did Hiram Revels, the first black senator. Supreme Justice was served, remarked Thurgood Marshall, the only – oops, I mean the first black to judge in the Supreme Court.

Downstairs, in the Ella Fitzgerald First black woman to win a Grammy Kitchen and Lounge, Hattie McDaniel gazed at her Oscar while she waited for the cornbread to cool.  Sarah Goode, first black patent winner offered folding bed resting space for the weary angels protecting our firsts to rest while on break, and Gwendolyn Brooks read to them from her first black woman poetry Pulitzer collection.  Constance Baker Motley first black woman federal judge ruled  while the funniest lines were from Madame CJ Walker, who joked that she would put her first black woman millionaire money where her mouth was in this election if she could.

But what of the living firsts?  What did Doug Wilder, first black elected governor, first black Miss America Vanessa Williams, first black Nobel literature winner Toni Morrison, other side of the fence Colin and Condi have to say about the newest member of the elite black Ichiban?  Will Barack be welcomed by first black UN Ambassador Andy Young, by first black woman Winter Olympic medalist Debi Thomas?  How have they treated first jazz Grammy album of the year winner, Herbie Hancock? First black billionaires, Bob Johnson and Oprah, where is their money and their mouth now?  Barrington Irving, first black man to fly around the world in 2007, did they teach him the secret black Ichiban handshake?  But we do know that the black best can finish first, and it is a tough road, just ask the first black Superbowl winning coach.

So Barack is Ichiban black, now and forever. First black man to secure a major American political party nomination. And the Clinton prophecy comes one step closer to fruition. George Clinton that is. Who knew that 3 am phone call was Dr. Dre.  White House.  Always had a reaction to that name.  But maybe now it’s a different game.  Change we can believe in.