I can still see a man standing at the microphone while I was watching coverage of the Democratic National Convention.

Suddenly, the name Julian Bond was on the lips of the announcers and the pundits. That was not a name I’d heard before in 1972. He was an eloquent speaker who had spoken of putting his own name in nomination for vice president on the ticket that eventually needed a candidate when Thomas Eagleton was dropped from the ticket.

Bond spoke so well, there was mention of him as a future presidential candidate. He was actually too young to be president of the United States back then, but the thought of him serving was inspiring to some. Julian Bond was an African-American.

Amid all the short, spirited speeches by representatives who proudly proclaimed their state as the home of favorite sons, sports teams and good things to eat, Bond was a refreshing departure. Many thought then that he had a future ahead of him and might some day return to a convention floor as something other than a delegate.

That was not to be for Bond, who went on to a career as a civil rights leader. Occasionally, his voice or his face are still parts of public service commercial. But more importantly, his example is one that may have given hundreds or thousands of African-Americans a dream that Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t. It was the dream of becoming the first African-American president of the United States.

I thought of Bond four years ago when I was watching coverage of the Democratic National Convention on WTTW in Chicago. As I sat in a living room in Lafayette where you can still see WTTW, the PBS channel for Chicago, I heard correspondent Elizabeth Brackett comment about how intrigued the audience was by a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama. In Chicago, Obama was known by many in political circles, and he would later have little trouble in disposing of a carpetbagging Alan Keyes in a race for the U.S. Senate that year. Suddenly, Obama became a name familiar in Democratic circles.

Today, it’s a name that’s known throughout the world. It’s the name of the next president of the United States. It’s a name that at the end of all the campaign commercials, the barroom and backroom arguments and the friendly wagering is the answer to everyone’s question. It’s the name that will be on “Jeopardy” forever and be one that goes down in history books. It’s a name that will supplant Booker T. Washington in some history books that tell of prominent African-Americans. It’s a name that will rank with Jesse Owens and hundreds of others who have broken barriers many in their time thought would not be broken.

This has been a “Virginia Slims” election, not because Virginia was a battleground state where historic numbers of voters in a traditionally red state turned out for a blue candidate named Obama. It’s a Virginia Slims election because of the cigarette commercial that came along about the same time Julian Bond first stirred talk of an African-American president. Virginia Slims cigarettes were targeted for women and were heralded with the jingle, “You’ve come a long way, baby, to get where you got to today. ...”

It only took 50-plus years for women to go from being able to vote for candidates to being able to smoke their own cigarettes in smoke-filled rooms, or so Virginia Slims would portend, but it has taken less time to go from Julian Bond’s seed to Obama. We’ve only had three African-American senators in the history of the country and one African-American governor.

But since Bond spoke at the convention in 1972, we’ve had Tiger Woods win Augusta repeated times. We’ve had Guy Bluford in orbit aboard the space shuttle. We’ve had Hank Aaron endure death threats to surpass Babe Ruth, only to be eclipsed by the controversial Bobby Bonds.

We’ve had Art Shell become the first African-American NFL coach and Nolan Richardson become the first African-American to coach a college basketball team to an NCAA title. We’ve had Frank Robinson as the first African-American to manage a Major League Baseball team and Bernard Shaw as the African-American anchor of CNN.

The list goes on in so many areas. But on the long presidential list of names that now numbers 44, the first name on the list of African-American presidents is Barack Obama.

We’ve come a long way. And so has Obama. He smoked once, but it’s doubtful he smoked Virginia Slims. He listened to his wife. He quit, which was one of the first and many politically correct things he’s done in a stunning, inspiring political career.

Dave Kitchell is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com