History, History, and More History

This is a really terrific piece by Karen Ocamb in LA's The Pride detailing how Hillary Clinton's campaign made LGBT history last night, too:

Drink this in: on Tuesday night, June 7, 2016, Hillary Clinton shattered America’s 240-year old glass ceiling, becoming the first woman nominated by a major political party to be their candidate for President of the United States. Even before Clinton won California by 56% of the vote, she had secured enough pledged delegates to declare victory over rival democratic socialist Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Primary.

But what many do not realize is that Clinton was led to that milestone by Robby Mook, the first openly gay campaign manager of a major presidential campaign in U.S. history. And not only did Clinton nod to the LGBT community in her speech, she included two transgender women in her victory video, watched by millions before she came onstage.

...[In the video that aired before she took the stage, Clinton included] visuals of black transgender activist Cherno Biko, with a voice over from another transgender activist, Blossom Brown, an HRC Christian volunteer from Mississippi, in a video that [also] shows a young Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farmer Workers movement and Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to Congress and the first woman to run for president.

"I want to help give back. I've met so many other transgender people–their voices haven't always been heard but I've told them, 'Our time is coming. We're going to change the world together," says Brown in the video.

Someday, the words "liberty and justice for all" might actually mean something. This is an important step, taken by a presidential candidate who understands how important it really is. Who gets that symbols matter, but so does action.