I admit it, I did not see Obama give his famous speech at the 2004 convention. I was out of the country and I didn’t want to give up a day in London for a late night watching TV. Nonetheless, I chose Obama as “my guy” the day that he announced. I have never regretted that wild-ass guess.
As I watched the returns come in yesterday at the Democratic victory party, I could feel the excitement building as we saw the inevitable coming right at us. We knew it was in the bag before the west coast closed, but we all still kept our fingers crossed. When all 3 west coast states were called for Obama and the number broke the 270 mark and the screen flashed “President-Elect Obama” the place went wild. There were black women screaming with joy and asian women weeping. Generations of tyranny had a blow scored against them in a way that I still cannot comprehend without tearing up a little.
I stood on an elevated platform that afforded me a view of the crowd and of Obama giving his victory speech. He was not boastful but he recognized what impact this election has on this country and some of its most vulnerable minorities. He didn’t say it, but it means a lot to the rest of the world, too. I was moved by the scenes of African villages dancing with joy at the news. Today I saw scenes from countries all over the world. Many of these countries had hidden their flames of hope for America for the past 8 years. Last night, they brought those candles out from the hiding places and showed us that they still hoped for this grand experiment to self-correct and provide a smart and capable leadership model for the entire world.
I stood on the elevated platform with one of my friends, and I tried to put myself in her shoes, as a black woman who has had to fight tooth and nail for everything that she has achieved, and she has done much. Next to her were a few black men that couldn’t take their eyes off of the screen. The crowd had thinned from the peak of the party, but the energy remained.
When I finally packed my stuff and made for my car, I started to let it sink in. As I pulled out onto King St. there were a few young black men standing in the street with huge handmade OBAMA signs, cheering to every car that came out of the parking lot. Two of them were jumping up and down and screaming as 350 years of pent-up racial indignation was finally starting to find an outlet in pure joy. It made me very proud of what we had accomplished.