We are beneficiaries

After Monday's Charleston premiere of the Northern Light documentary Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968, filmmakers Bestor Cram and Judy Richardson opened the floor to questions and comments. Some were interesting. Some were moving. Some were neither.

But one moment stood out to me, and it's stayed with me since. It came when Osei Chandler, an important figure here in the city, took the microphone and talked about the significance of the civil rights movement to a generation of young people who grew up in its wake. Here's what he said:

Too often, people think we're victims. But we're beneficiaries... Beneficiaries have rights and responsibilities, and (young people) owe us better.

Afterward, a woman picked up the "beneficiaries" theme in her comments, and I found myself wondering about its power. Because it seems to me this isn't just a 60-year-old African-American calling on younger African-Americans to step up and "recognize that they stand on the shoulders of giants." It also seemed to be a big statement in a new context.

Things are pretty bleak right now, and we still don't have justice for Orangeburg 41 years later, but the American dream just got more credible last month.