Happy New Year! GRITtv is away until January 6. In the meantime we're airing some of the best shows from the past eight months.  

Tonight on GRITtv, Barack Obama's historic candidacy. Manning Marable, a professor of history at Columbia University, says that Obama’s victory is a “mind-bending accomplishment.”

Marable, who at 58 remembers the days of Jim Crow well, says that by electing Barack Obama we have lived Black history and remade American history. Forty Seven Years after the Freedom Ride Campaign to register African-American voters in the Jim Crow South, the United States has elected its first African-American president.

Steve Cobble, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, reminds us that five of the first seven U.S. presidents were slave-owners. Obama’s victory he notes was overwhelming. Not only did he win states that Democrats haven’t won since the 1960’s, but he also staked out new territory in the Southwest and brought young and Hispanic voters into the Party in dramatic numbers.

So what lies ahead?

Malia Lazu, Executive Director of The Gathering For Justice, Manning Marable, and Steve Cobble discuss why the formation of a center-left coalition is crucial to holding Obama accountable on foreign policy, health care, and the economy. Make activism a part of your daily life Cobble says. It all depends on what we do independently of mainstream Democratic Party politics.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation Magazine, says that the progressive left must create a new mandate and that now is the time to be bold. There has been a generational and perhaps an ideological shift and the old order is dead. The grassroots, movement politics that helped to elect Barack Obama will be even more important now. Obama confessed in his speech last night that he needs our help. Holding his administration accountable and building a stronger small "d" democratic movement will be necessary in the days and weeks to follow.

Thanks to the American News Project, Sanford Lewis and Jonathan Mena of Video the Vote, Shane and Amy Bugby at a Year at the Wheel, and Dan Leong for videos in tonight's program.