U.S. history was made last night when the Democratic Party nominated Barack Obama, an African American, to the nation’s highest elected office. That milestone prompts reflection on how U.S. democracy, like all democracies, evolve.

Jean Rogers, deputy director of the Center for International Private Enterprise, shared her thoughts on the long road to equal opportunity in America in an entry on the CIPE Development Blog today.

Today is the 45th Anniversary of one of the most famous speeches in American history: “I have a dream.” Martin Luther King galvanized an audience of thousands as he spoke these hope-filled words from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the heart of Washington DC. The dream speech came 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln that freed slaves in the United States. King noted this and the fact that, despite that momentous step, blacks in the US still “languished in the corners of society” and lived on a “lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” They were political and economic outcasts in their own country. But they had found a voice for their grievance.

The times in which this speech was made were turbulent. American society heaved itself through change, wrenching through paroxysms of protest, pushback, violence, and small victories. Less than 3 months after King’s 1963 speech, an American president who championed change lay dead, and his successor politically strong-armed passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act as a memoriam through a reluctant Congress. It was another momentous step.

On paper, I’m too young to remember the earlier “separate but equal” approach that had been legal before CRA passage. My schools were always integrated. But practice in the deep South where I grew up took more than one law to change. I remember separate waiting rooms at the doctor’s offices and separate swimming pools in the summer. My high school class, 5 years after graduation, was the first in school history to have an integrated reunion.

The past 45 years have brought more change in the U.S., but few would say it’s been easy or become perfected. King grounded his speech in a call for the rule of law to prevail and the Constitutional promise of unalienable rights to be honored, for the nation conceived in liberty to truly provide liberty for all. He also called for economic change, recognizing that equal opportunity meant more than moving up “from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.” With many steps in these areas, both big and small, the U.S. has since become a stronger democracy.

Rule of law. Rights. Liberty. Justice. Opportunity. Stronger democracy. These resonate in many struggles still today, not just in the U.S. and not just on issues of race. I see this everyday in my work. Change is what CIPE is all about: strengthening democracy around the world. Our partners are the modern-day Martin Luther Kings of their own countries, reformers who give voice to the politically and economically dispossessed and who champion change. They often focus on the gulf between laws on paper and the practices of real life, and seek to change economies that permit only small islands of prosperity amidst vast seas of poverty.

I am reminded today in reflecting on the U.S.’s own path, that change does not come easily, that passing laws is essential and momentous but often insufficient, and that we should respect reformers, not be naïve about the difficulty of their calling, and support them as best we can. Because around the world, we all still have dreams.

What are your dreams for democracy? Share them here.

Despite amassing a truly impressive collection of Olympic gold medals, host China doesn’t seem to have gotten off the starting block on freedom of expression, despite its pre-Games assurances to the rest of the world. The world is noticing.

“We are disappointed that China has not used the occasion of the Olympics to demonstrate greater tolerance and openness,” U.S. embassy spokeswoman Susan Stevenson told a Voice of America reporter.

As part of its pre-Games planning, the Chinese government designated three Beijing parks for protests during the Olympics, but those venues went unused.

“There is a fact that there were 77 applications …. We found it unusual that none of these applications have come through with protest,” Jacques Rogge, chairman of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), told reporters in a post-Olympics news conference in Beijing Sunday.

He said Chinese authorities told the IOC most questions raised by the protest applicants had been addressed by “mutual agreement.”

Especially harsh criticism is coming from the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters without Borders, which called China’s performance on free expression an “Olympic disaster” in which authorities prevented journalists and bloggers from covering protests or any other subject the government deemed sensitive.

“As we feared, the Beijing Olympic games have been a period conducive to arrests, convictions, censorship, surveillance and harassment of more than 100 journalists, bloggers and dissidents,” Robert Ménard, the organization’s secretary-general, said. “This repression will be remembered as one of the defining characteristics of the Beijing games.”

Acts of repression cited by the organization included 22 foreign journalists attacked, arrested or obstructed during the games; at least 50 Beijing-based human rights activists placed under house arrest, harassed or forced to leave; at least 15 Chinese citizens arrested for requesting permission to demonstrate; dozens, including the blogger Zhou “Zola” Shuguang and the handicapped petitioner Chen Xiujuan, physically prevented by police from traveling to Beijing; and at least 47 pro-Tibet activists, mostly from Students for a Free Tibet, arrested in Beijing.

Many had hoped the Olympics would crack open the door to greater freedom of expression in China. Some are finding that crack as tiny as a sprinter’s margin of victory.

In mid-July, America.gov posted a story on the failure of the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution condemning and sanctioning members of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling regime in Zimbabwe. The crisis in Zimbabwe continues, and so do comments from our readers. On August 20, one sent this note in response to that article.

“International communities or countries besides China and Russia, which support the governing system of Mugabe, have absolutely little influence for the changing attitude of Mugabe’s governing system, which is based on intimidation, power-centralization in the hand of Mugabe. China and Russia are playing cards with the innocent lives of people for their political and economical benefits. Such games to challenge not only US but also the international communities have been played long though the consequences of this game cost indescribable destruction for a nation, by and large, and a great deal of lives of innocent people.

People can simply understand the move made by China and Russia, yet these both coutries by human hearts and conscience must not embrace and support Mugabe since these both countries are accountable in the sufferings and killing of people under the Mugabe’s governing system.”

Is it possible for the world community to effectively push for improvements in Zimbabwe without cooperation from China and Russia?

With events in China and Georgia vying for the world’s attention this week, a development forum in Johannesburg hasn’t grabbed much in the way of headlines. So you might not know the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) adopted a protocol August 18 that is being hailed by gender rights activists as a major breakthrough in protecting and promoting opportunities for women, both politically and economically. (See Inter Press News Agency’s “Ground-breaking Gender Protocol Signed”.)

The document, endorsed by 12 of the 14 SADC member countries, includes 25 articles setting goals ranging from equal access to justice and education to constitutional protections for women’s rights. It sets an ambitious target of 50 percent female representation at all levels of government by 2015 and calls for national legislation to prohibit all forms of violence against women. It also addresses health issues, and stresses the importance of female-controlled methods to prevent transmission of HIV/AIDS.

One of the signatories to the protocol is Zimbabwe, a nation that remains embroiled in political turmoil and politically motivated violence. An activist group, the SADC Gender Protocol Alliance, has said it will be difficult to implement the protocol in Zimbabwe without a speedy and democratic resolution to current political negotiations. (See the Chronicle’s “SADC leaders praised for gender protocol.”)

How important is gender equality as African nations move toward fully participatory governments? And, in an embattled nation like Zimbabwe, how high a priority should be assigned to achieving equal rights for women?

August 8 marked 20 years since Burma’s popular democratic uprising and the deaths of 3,000 Burmese who participated in that struggle. No one knows how many more have suffered under the oppressive regime of a military junta.

In an anniversary statement released by the State Department, the United States renewed “its call for Burma’s military junta to release immediately all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi, and end its detention of Burmese engaged in peaceful political activities.” But the unspoken question left hanging in the air is “Or else what?”

The Burmese government’s disregard for the welfare of its citizens has allowed it to hold them hostage, a virtual human shield against pressures by other governments and nongovernmental organizations to help Burma find a path to peaceful reconstruction and restoration of basic human rights to its people. Even in the wake of the destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis, governmental restrictions delayed and diverted aid from people who desperately needed it.

Like Zimbabwe, this resource-rich East Asian nation was once a regional breadbasket capable of feeding its own people and exporting its surpluses. “Now half the people who live in Burma suffer from malnutrition and hunger,” first lady Laura Bush said August 7 at a Thai camp for Burmese refugees. She reiterated a call for other nations to join in “U.S. sanctions directed specifically at General Than Shwe and his cohorts in the junta.”

What more can or should the world be doing to champion the Burmese people?