In the second decade of the new century, Americans can reflect on two significant developments that have profoundly shaped their own day: the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the election of the nation’s first African American president, Barack Obama, on November 4, 2008. Too little time has passed for us to assess whether either event will be remembered as helping to define the twenty-first century. But both have indelibly marked our present. And both had distinct antecedents and still have profound implications.