On Tuesday, White America Came of Age : Elections: When reason surpasses race or sex in voting, the best men and women win--and they did.

On Tuesday, with the election of Doug Wilder, a descendant of slaves, as governor of Virginia, America completed an historic cycle. In the 1960s, we integrated the lunch counters and the libraries. Today we are integrating the mind of America and the leadership of our country.

In 1619, slave ships landed in Jamestown, Va., bearing Gov.-elect Wilder’s forebears who were Africans shackled in chains to be sold as chattel. The Constitution would later define us as three-fifths human. In the journey from the holds of these ships to the governor’s office under the Capitol dome in Richmond, remarkable changes have taken place.

This magnificent journey, from slave ship to championship, marks a great moment in American history that should make all of us proud to be Americans--without a hyphen. Such victories make us as a nation less racist, less sexist--more excellent.

The conventional wisdom is that African American and women candidates somehow are changing. The reality is that white male America is maturing. It is becoming more secure in this multiracial and multicultural society.

There were other victories and milestones. New Yorkers elected David Dinkins the first African American mayor of their city. John Daniels in New Haven and Norm Rice in Seattle hurdled the race barrier to become the first African American mayors of their hometowns. Two Arab American women attained public office: Suzanne Sarieni won election to the Dearborn, Mich., City Council and Betty Esper became mayor of Homestead, Pa.

There are still those hostile to the empowerment of African Americans, Latinos, women and other minorities. But they are on the losing side of history even if they gain aid and comfort from the deficit of moral leadership in the White House--the absence of a chief civil-rights officer in the Justice Department, the lack of an effective Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chief and a Civil Rights Commission without credibility.

But, even with these failures of leadership, a maturing white America is choosing a better course over a bitter course.

This is the real story of Tuesday’s election results. It is not news that qualified African Americans and women ran for public office. It is news that white Americans voted for them in sufficient numbers to give them well-earned victories.

At the beginning of our Republic, full citizenship was limited to white male landowners over the age of 25. The Big Lie of white male supremacy made the country sick, divided it and caused fear, hatred, violence and, lest we forget, was a crucial factor in starting the Civil War.

The great struggle of America has been to open up the democracy to locked-out groups. Just last Sunday, the Southern Poverty Law Center dedicated a memorial in Montgomery, Ala., to the people who gave their lives in the modern civil-rights movement. The stones of bigotry, hostility and prejudice are being rolled away, giving way to resurrection, the joy of a new day.

It used to be that candidates could prey easily on white male racial and sexual fears with racially based campaigning, like the Willie Horton ad. But white voters are increasingly rejecting such appeals as insulting and anachronistic. They are tired of candidates waving American flags made in Taiwan. When reason surpasses race as the thought process of voters, we all win.

I could see the change in white America’s attitudes unfolding during the 1988 presidential primaries. I saw it in the face of the farmer who told me he would rather vote for “a black friend than a white enemy.”

This maturation phenomenon is a political process. It takes time and organization.It is no mere coincidence that the cities breaking through on Tuesday and electing African American mayors--New York, New Haven, Seattle, Cleveland--also gave their votes to the African American candidate in last year’s Democratic presidential primaries.

It is not that African Americans were not ready for leadership before. We were qualified to play baseball before 1947, to go to public school with whites before 1954, to sit on the bus before 1955, to eat a hamburger in an integrated restaurant before 1964, to vote without harassment before 1965 and to live in fair housing before 1968. We have moved up, not according to our ability, but according to the speed with which whites were able to overcome their unfounded fears and insecurities.

But our movement upward has benefited all people, who are finally being given a chance to develop to their highest potential. Our movement historically has opened doors for white women, such as Kathy Whitmire, just reelected to her fifth term as mayor of Houston, Gov. Kay Orr of Nebraska and Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland.

The the decline of racism and sexism also benefits white men, who can finally realize their potential, not by domination but by solidarity and connection with other human beings. The success of one of us enriches us all.

Imagine where we would be as a society today without the legacy of racism and sexism. We would be more educated, more productive, more virtuous, more competitive.

But after Tuesday’s elections, we are now one important step closer to that day when, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we in America judge other people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

That America is the best America, our promise and our dream.