The news brought in by our Joseph Goldstein on yesterday’s front page, about how black partners at major law firms are mobilizing behind the presidential campaign of Senator Obama, is more than just a political story. A partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf, Gordon Davis, who is a former city parks commissioner and former president of Lincoln Center, told the New York Sun that when he made partner in 1983 at Lord, Day & Lord, he became the fifth black partner then working at a major firm in the entire city. Now there are about 125. “In 1983, of the few of us that were, none of us were thinking about running for president,” Mr. Davis said. “It’s a different sense of horizon.”

Mr. Davis’s remark strikes us as noteworthy. In absolute numbers, the gains may be decidedly modest, still leaving black lawyers at levels below 3% of the partners at major firms, far below their representation in the general population. But the pace of change, the 20-or-more-fold increase in the number of black partners at major law firms in the city, that pace is encouraging. It is encouraging to hear someone of Mr. Davis’s distinction speaking of a new horizon. And the sense of excitement among this small, but important slice of our city’s mosaic, is, even for those of us who disagree with Mr. Obama on policy, good to hear voiced.