‘One of you is next’

So familiar is Hillary Clinton to the American people that to young voters, there has never been a time when the former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady was not in the public eye. That sense of familiarity, we suspect, is one reason why the historic nature of her quest for the presidency is less celebrated than it otherwise would be. Even so, this moment is an important milestone in our nation’s history.

On Tuesday night, for the first time in U.S. history, a major political party nominated a woman for the office of president of the United States. As Clinton said in her televised address to the convention, “If there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch, let me just say, I may become the first woman president, but one of you is next.”

There likely will be no moments at either convention to match the joy with which 102-year-old Geraldine “Jerry” Emmett helped report the votes of the Arizona delegation for Clinton during the roll call of the states. Emmett, after all, is a woman born in 1914, before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. She remembered at the convention the first time her mother ever voted: “We all walked out in the middle of the street and cheered, like they’re cheering here — because my mother was going to get to have a say. That was something!”

Yes, that was something. It was something then and remains so today.

Hillary Clinton might never be president, but she has blazed a trail that other women will follow until some day, the gender of a candidate will hardly matter. Right now, let us savor this moment. Young millennials, who don’t like Clinton, should at least understand and appreciate the struggle that brought her to Philadelphia. Just think of Jerry Emmett’s joy.

History has been made. The glass ceiling is cracked. Come November, that ceiling might just break wide open.