Throughout the transition, I would catch a glimpse of Obama on TV with a graphic reminding me he is President-elect. Every time, I was surprised again. And I am still amazed he carried North Carolina.

But I wonder how long the racial honeymoon will last. How long before bigotry reenters the political debate, at least in low tones aimed at presumably sympathetic ears?

The cliché is that America has moved beyond race. No way.

During the campaign, Obama was able to avoid race to a surprising extent. He didn’t have to sound like Jesse Jackson to generate the black turnout Jackson dreamed about in 1984 and 1988.

But after the new President takes the oath Tuesday, every move he and his family make, every photo op and sound bite, will remind white Americans they have a President who looks very different from any other.

When his sky-high poll numbers fall, as they will, and when he does things that make the McCain voters and Republicans mad, as he will, will we hear the same ugly words we’ve heard so long?

Everybody has their story about race. Here’s mine. I grew up in Raleigh in the 50s and 60s. I remember separate water fountains, separate bathrooms and blacks relegated to the balconies of the Ambassador and State movie theaters downtown.

I started public school the year after the Brown v Board of Education decision. I graduated from Broughton in 1967. I never had a black person in one of my classes. As I recall, there were maybe a dozen African-Americans in my graduating class. Ligon was still the black high school.

My first job was at The News & Observer, the modern-day tribune of liberalism. The only blacks in the newsroom were copyboys.

Thirty years in politics, and every campaign was a dance over race. How could a progressive Democrat generate black turnout without setting off a white backlash?

The struggle with prejudice doesn’t end at noon Tuesday. It begins all over again.

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