The other day I had a friend point out to me that Nathan Legarde, the hero in Titanic: The Untold Story was similar in many ways to presidential candidate, Barach Obama.  I was a little skeptical at first, but the more we talked, the more I realized she was on to something. Funny how as a writer, you can get so close to your characters, that you sometimes can’t see what’s right in front of you.  Before that conversation, I would never have compared Nathan Legarde to Barach Obama. For one thing, Senator Obama is the epitome of tact. He doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve. And he is cool personified.  If he’s upset or angry about something, you’d never know it.  These are all personality traits that Nathan Legarde certainly doesn’t have.  In fact, he just the opposite.  When he gets angry, he can’t hide it, and even when he tries to stifle his emotions, they tend to come out anyway.
BUT, as my friend pointed out, like Barach Obama in 2008, Nathan Legarde  possesses an audacity that few black men dared to display in 1912.  Legarde believed that he was equal to any man on the Titanic or anywhere else, and he made no bones about it.  He wasn’t self-effacing; he didn’t shuck and jive just to get along.  He carried himself with dignity and pride; he demanded respect and was not satisfied with anything less. He was an educated black man and strived for excellence in everything he did.  And, he  had the boldness to marry the woman he loved,  a white woman, at a time when Negro men could be hanged for simply looking at a white woman.
Although I’d never even heard of Barach Obama when I sketched Legarde’s character, I now agree that they are certainly men cut from the same cloth. Obama is an intelligent man who carries himself with dignity and exudes pride and confidence.  He has the courage and guts  to put his life on the line for his country, even when there are still some people in America who think he has no business  running for President because of the color of his skin.  When Barach Obama walks into a room or before a crowd, his demeanor speaks loudly the fact that he knows he is somebody.
Like Barach Obama, Nathan Legarde had that same boldness. He refused to let others define who he was, where he could go, and what he could do.  Just like Obama, he had the AUDACITY to say to the world: “I am somebody. And when I leave this world, someone will know I was here.”