MANILA, Philippines?Before Barack Obama?s ascent to the US presidency came the hard work and sacrifices of Rev. Jesse Jackson, Malcolm X and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The latter two were shot down in cold blood by bigoted white supremacists.

Before Halle Berry came the pioneering Hattie McDaniel, Butterfly McQueen, Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge, the first African-American actress to have been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. McDaniel won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing a nanny in ?Gone With the Wind.?

Difficult years

Before Denzel Washington and Will Smith became a big Hollywood star and Academy Award winner were the difficult years of Paul Robeson, Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier. Washington and other popular black actors these days would be guilty of ingratitude if they didn?t acknowledge their predecessors? vital contributions.

Horne and Dandridge were such outstanding beauties that they achieved considerable success even during their more restrictive times. But, they suffered racial prejudice just the same. Their names lit up the marquees of prestigious venues whose front doors they weren?t even allowed to enter!

Robeson graduated at the top of his class in Princeton University, but he was also a victim of prejudice. Because he was an independent thinker, he had to eventually seek refuge in Europe and Russia. The original interpreter of ?Ol? Man River? died a lonely exile, alienated from the country he loved so much.

Symbolic victory

Adolf Hitler condemned people who were not pure Caucasians, so when African-American Jesse Owens won a gold medal in the Olympics held in Nazi-controlled Germany, it was a symbolic victory for the race that later gave birth to the gifted likes of Obama, Berry and Forest Whitaker.

Michael Jackson?s family should thank Louis Armstrong, Nat ?King? Cole and Sammy Davis Jr. Without their trend-setting careers, Michael and his siblings would never have achieved the level of success they enjoyed. Ditto for Natalie Cole, who enjoyed greater global success because of the sacrifices made by her father, Nat.

As the Tagalog proverb aptly reminds, ?Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa kanyang paroroonan (Unless you know where you came from, you?ll never reach your destination).?