Today, amid the justifiable joy at the true milestone we mark, I want to spend a little time noting the absence in DC of people who were prevented from seeing this day. Each of them is owed a place on the dais.

A woefully incomplete list:

Louis Allen. L. D. Barkley. Willie Brewster. Benjamin Brown. Cesar Cause. James Chaney. Addie Mae Collins. Vernon Dahmer. Jonathan Myrick Daniels. Henry Hezekiah Dee. Roman Ducksworth, Jr. Willie Edwards. Medgar Evers. Phillip Gibbs. James Earl Green. Andrew Goodman. Paul Guihard. Samuel Ephesians Hammond. Fred Hampton. Bobby Hutton. George Jackson. Jimmie Lee Jackson. Wharlest Jackson. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bruce Klunder. George Lee. Herbert Lee. Viola Liuzzo. Denise McNair. Delano Herman Middleton. Charles Eddie Moore. Harry T. Moore. Oneal Moore. William Lewis Moore. Michael Nathan. Lemuel Penn. Rainey Pool. James Reeb. Carole Robertson. Bill Sampson. Mickey Schwerner. El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Henry Ezekial Smith. Lamar Smith. Sandi Smith. Emmett Till. Clarence Triggs. Samuel Leamon Younge, Jr. James Waller. Virgil Lamar Ware. Ben Chester White. Cynthia Wesley.

Thank you all — and your hundreds of colleagues, unnamed and unknown — for the sacrifices you made that brought this day to us.

1. 
   MAL 2009 01 20 at 7:54:17 pm

   I don’t know if you ever see the cartoon “Candorville,” but Sunday’s strip was a single panel devoted to precisely this notion. It’s here: http://candorville.com/

   (The cartoon swings between standard storytelling and nicely pointed social commentary - our local went through ridiculous contortions last year over its comics page, and I’m very happy they decided to keep it.)

2. 
   Lilian Nattel 2009 01 20 at 10:08:41 pm

   At important Jewish life cycle events, there is an empty chair
   for Elijah the Prophet, because he is the people’s prophet, the
   one who comes in the guise of a beggar to comfort and succour
   those who’ve been abandoned by everyone else. There is also
   a cup of wine at the Passover seder for him. Perhaps there
   should be another empty chair at important events to remember
   these people, too.

3. 
   arvind 2009 01 21 at 4:22:05 pm

   Amen. Here’s to each and every one of them. And here’s to every Spartacus of every color in every century who ever revolted against this abomination.