STONE

DENVER — A lot of Walter Stone’s friends made the pilgrimage to Washington 45 years ago to watch Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stake his claim to a dream of racial harmony near the great marble statue of Abraham Lincoln.

“It was a moving moment,” recalled Stone, but he was busy preparing for college classes, nurturing a dream of his own that had sprung from the searing experience of being one of the black students who integrated Henry Clay High School in Lexington, Ky.

Stone was determined to get himself to law school and work for civil rights through the system. Along the way, he encountered the likes of John Lewis, another Fisk University student, who was bloodied in the civil-rights marches. Stone went on to earn that law degree, took a legal fellowship in Providence, became a community organizer, and became active in Democratic politics.

Last night, Walter Stone stood in a football arena framed by the Rocky Mountains to witness an enactment of a piece of the dream. Another man with black skin, Barack Obama, accepted the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.

As Stone applauded with tens of thousands of others, Obama introduced himself not only as the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, but also as a member, in his words, of “one American family.”

Recalled the 64-year-old Stone: “The moment with Dr. King was almost like the seed. And now tonight, you are seeing the fruit. You are seeing the blossoming of the flower.”

As for last night’s spectacle at Invesco Field, Stone said, “This is the march of ’63, Woodstock and the Super Bowl of politics all in one. This is so much bigger than race. It’s a movement. He just happens to be the face of it.”

All the same, Stone — who has been through some political struggles — made clear that he is gratified by Obama’s nomination, but not satisfied. Like his old friend John Lewis, now a Georgia congressman who gave a rousing address last night that echoed King’s speech, Stone said there is a hard road between here and the White House.

Even as he marveled at the dazzling stage where Obama spoke, the high-tech videos and the power of the screaming throng, Stone said he worries that Obama’s opponents may be able to portray this night as just another celebrity event.

Stone’s own road started in Chicago, where he lived until after his junior year in high school. He finished high school in Lexington, occasionally enduring “some physical confrontation,” as he put it, as one of the first of his race to cross the color barrier in a segregated school. Such confrontations occurred across the South before legal segregation was gradually broken with the help of the federal government; battles later ensued in Northern cities over the busing of students to integrate schools.

Stone attended Tennessee State University, and later Fisk, in Nashville. He went on to law school at Case Western Reserve, in Cleveland. There he lived another piece of King’s dream, working as a lawyer in the administration of Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of a major American city.

Along the way, he served for 13 months in Vietnam as a Marine.

Stone, now a courtroom litigator who lives in the Elmwood neighborhood of Providence, is an alternate delegate for Obama who said he has been involved in enough political campaigns to be dazzled by how Obama has followed the path prepared by his elders.

“He worked, he planned, and he executed the plan well,” Stone said. He added that during a trip overseas last year — to North Vietnam, to Ghana and to the Ivory Coast — he was heartened by how Obama’s candidacy, as well as its contrast to the current administration, had captured imaginations abroad.

Obama touched last night on the allure that has always drawn people of other lands to this one.

“It is that promise that has always set this country apart — that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.”

Gratified as he was to witness that flowering of King’s dream in Obama’s acceptance speech last night, Stone downplayed the emotional aspect of the historic moment. He has been in politics most of his life, he said. “This is the fifth convention I’ve been to, so I don’t get excited tonight,” he said.

“I get excited on November the fifth,” said Stone. “I get excited when Barack Obama gets elected and does a good job as president.”

jmulligan@belo-dc.com