Yes We Did! Yes He Did! Yes! Yes! Yes!

I wrote this piece the night of November 4th 2008, so I'm a bit late in posting it. Still, President Elect Obama does not become President Obama until January 20th, so I figure it isn't too late to post the feelings I had as the election was called that night.

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It’s one A.M. here in Willoughby, and I have the strongest urge to stand up and sing, “We Shall Overcome” at the top of my lungs in honor of all those who paved the way, and made this day possible. I want to honor Martin Luther King, and Carl and Louis Stokes, Rosa Parks, and all those who fought the good fight for civil rights and equality, so that today, my new president is not only brilliant, graceful, strong, and calm, he’s also African American.

“We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday.
Oh deep in my heart I do believe, we shall overcome someday.

We sang it in the Equality Committee, in 1962 and 63, at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, as we plotted and planned and worked to integrate our college. I sang it sitting alone on the bed in my parent’s bedroom on August 28, 1963, watching the March on Washington, and with Peter, Paul, and Mary when I attended their concerts. It has always brought me to tears, and given me hope, but tonight, I sing it, alone, scaring my cats with my terrible voice, because, by God, we have overcome. We’ve overcome our country’s history of slavery, racism, and inequality, and we’ve elected Barack Obama, not because of his color, but because he is the right man for the job, at this difficult time.

In 1960, I was a sixteen year old girl, riding the bus to downtown Cincinnati to try to be part of The New Frontier. I missed my chance to see JFK in person, because, although I had my driver’s license, by the time I cleared the students’ parking lot at Walnut Hills, and braved the insane traffic, he was gone, on to another city, another campaign stop. Still, I made calls, rode a sound truck, yelling till I was hoarse, and sold buttons for contributions. Somewhere up in the guest bedroom, tucked away in my memory box, is a campaign button for JFK. I used to have a styrofoam campaign hat, but it’s no longer in the box.

This year I took part in the first political campaign I’ve been involved in since that fateful year. I did data entry, shredded the results of canvassing and phone calls, actually canvassed three times, wrote post cards, and put together a card to send to new voters, but I’m proudest of the trip I made to take two young men, Euclid High School seniors and interns in the Euclid Obama office, down to the Board of Elections to early vote and cast the first ballot of their lives, and to cast it for someone who looked like them.

They stood in line, hundreds of people, young and old, men and women, some with their young children. The majority of them were African American, with a few White and Asians in the mix. They stood in a line that started on the sidewalk in front of the Board of Elections in downtown Cleveland. The line went into the building, where the people were sent in two different directions. Some were sent ahead in a line that snaked around and ended in a room where identification checkers and curtained voting booths were waiting. Others were sent down the stairs to a line that curved around before entering a similar room where their identifying information and their ID card or driver’s license would be checked. Once they passed that barrier, they went into another line, which looped around twice before sending each person to a voting booth as it became available.

They stood in line for more than an hour, and I understand that on other days the wait was two or three hours. Yet, in all the time, I sat outside that room, waiting for the two young men, not one person turned around in frustration, and left the line. It was cold outside and it was hot downstairs in that hallway, and these people had already stood in line outside, in the front hallway, and down the stairs, and yet they were not angry or upset. People were serious, but pleasant to each other, as they stood quietly filling out the voter’s information sheet. Everyone, even the children that were brought along, seemed to know that this was an important election, perhaps the most important of our lifetime.

My impressions of this election came from addictively watching the cable news networks nightly, watching each debate, seeing the video of Barack’s speech on race, and reacting over and over to his oratorical brilliance, and the images his speeches gave me of how this country should be. He speaks with an eloquence few can match, and I believed in him from that day in January when he won the Iowa caucus. He had my vote that day.

But beyond all else there are two impressions that will stick with me forever, the first being that line at the Board of Elections, winding its peaceful, intentful way into a chance for hope and change. The second has to do with what is called the Obama ground campaign. The paid organizers and their unpaid volunteers, intense and determined, willing to do whatever it took for Barack Obama to win this election. They went without sitting down to meals, without being with their loved ones for months at a time, without sleep or time for themselves. Many were dropped in strange cities, living in the homes of strangers, counting on public transportations or other workers to get them to the field offices and back to their lodgings. Someone who put up an organizer described the young man, as falling exhausted into a chair each night, too tired to even eat.

These young people organized the ground campaign, finding people to work, putting people to work, overseeing all of the work of their volunteers. Without them, Barack Obama wouldn’t be our President-Elect. Many of them will go on to further roles in the Obama administration, and perhaps to political positions of their own. Some will go back to their normal lives now, changed forever by the part they played in this election. Seeing them at work was truly inspirational, and gave me hope for the future and for the world that my grandchildren will inherit.