Good news for Charles Barkley

Or, more likely, for U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, who has emerged as a gubernatorial candidate for 2010 or 2014. A Capital Survey Research Center poll taken in January and February found that 74 percent of Alabamians would feel at least "somewhat positive" about "a black governor of Alabama." Only 7 percent of respondents expressed a negative reaction.

Davis correctly noted that the poll doesn't mean much since it doesn't delve into specifics: "There won't ever be an abstract question on the ballot should people ever elect a black governor." Another consideration is that when it comes to race, some Alabamians have shown the tendency to say one thing in public and do another thing in the secrecy of the polling place, as the 40 percent vote to retain the unenforceable interracial marriage ban demonstrated a few years ago.

Just in case you bought into the myth that those 40 percent of voters reflected the unease of both blacks and whites about interracial marriage, here's another statistic from the Capital Survey poll: While 70 percent of blacks said they felt positively about interracial marriage, only 37 percent of whites did.

Progress can be painfully slow. But time and again, history has indicated that fortunately, inevitably, it does come.