In 2008, we learned a lot.

We learned that race was still a sore point in American society. However, we also learned that race was not enough to prevent a person from accomplishing a goal, even if that goal was becoming president of the United States. And, of course, we learned that many people—including most of us within black America—were willing to buy into a “change we can believe in.”

We learned that an organized team of willing and active folks that believe can make the “impossible” come true. We got a chance to see how that dream inspired black America.

In 2009, we learned a lot about politicians.

We saw that having African Americans in the highest political offices does not guarantee that the policies that most benefit black people will be promoted with success through the political channels, whether because of political opposition (the Republican standoff with the president’s super-majority of 2009), political atmosphere (the backlash against the president’s universal health care initiative) or political preference (the president’s decision to federally fund abortions services while choosing to cut funding to African-American elementary and secondary students).

We saw how—despite the numbers—the lack of a cohesive team in Congress prevented progress on the employment, health care and deficit fronts. We still see how that misstep impacted black America.

Black History Month is a good time to review the lessons of 2009—both the good and the bad—and find a way to make our agenda a national priority.

It is time to act together. It is time for many leaders—not one symbol—to bring about change, for leadership is not an automatic reality in government. Leadership is not based on “majority-rule,” either, or electoral victories. It comes from a combined effort of Americans who believe farther than they can see. When enacted, leadership allows for the previously unseen to become real.

In 2006, we couldn’t “see” a black president. In 2008, we believed it could happen. It did happen, and we took pride as a people in watching the first black president in our nation’s history lead the nation. However, in 2010, we must take even a higher level of pride in our children, in our communities and in our potential. We must infuse just as much energy into celebrating these other important sources of pride and progress as we did in the streets of Washington, D.C., in January 2009.

Our schools are not going to be changed merely by infusing money into them. Without a new paradigm of parent interaction, teacher accountability and investment in students, we will continue to “promote” an unacceptable portion of our children through school without the skills they need to compete in tomorrow’s world. Without education, we are without hope.

Our employment situation is not going to improve just because of increased spending in Washington. Unless we create incentives for businesses to move back into our communities to provide worthwhile jobs, we will continue to lag behind on the employment rolls. We need to push those businesses that already exist in our communities (including black business owners and proprietors) to provide more mentoring programs for our high school and college students, or they will fall further behind others in the march to accumulate skills that will allow them to accomplish their life goals.

Our struggle for the streets, with its high incarceration rates and horrific killing sprees, will not abate if we continue to seek one prominent leader for change. Community safety is an everyday issue for residents but a political issue for candidates—and candidates will seek to please voters at election time, often through more of the same failed policies like mass incarceration of our youth. Unless more black men and women press for safety within our communities—starting with our youngest citizens—we are going to continue to be mired in the poverty of death and despair, “safely” tucked away from the norms of social inclusion and success.

No movement for change within our communities is going to be effective from the top down. Like President Obama’s 2009 proclamation for a bottom-up economic recovery, it is going to take a bottom-up community recovery in 2010 if we are going to get the guns out of the hands of criminals’ hands and live in peace.

There will always be some political team, agenda, timing or distraction that will be put forward as the excuse for the gap between the changes we need in our communities and what we get from government. We saw (again) that having African Americans in the highest political offices (the first black president but also black governors and mayors) does not automatically improve the overall well-being of black America.

We have to embrace the lessons of 2009: that no team (regardless of numbers) can win without organized action; that no one person should stimulate more joy, activism and pride than the contemporary condition of black America; that hope for change should never be placed more in government than in everyday people; and that ideas and good intentions are never enough and must always be coupled with buy-in, vision and persistence.

The year 2008 showed us that the impossible could happen nationally. In 2009, we saw that bureaucracy and politics can get in the way, even as our needs increase. In 2010, we must unite our efforts, find the willpower and rely on ourselves to get the changes we need.

Lenny McAllister is a syndicated political commentator and the author of Diary of a Mad Black PYC (Proud Young Conservative).Follow him on Twitter.