Victory and history

Victory has come and it feels so good. I helped make history but I did not do it alone. Thanks to 66,882,230 million people who counted for 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes, Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States of America on January 20th 2009.
I could not fathom casting an absentee ballot so I went home to Philadelphia to vote. Pennsylvania and Florida were both significant swing states but what felt like the right thing for me to do was to go home. Although I went home to vote there were definitely perks of being in Florida also. On two separate occasions within weeks of the election, I was given the chance to see Obama. The first chance was when he was downtown by the America Airlines arena. By the time I got in the area I was literally about 5,000 people too late. I was crushed but was immediately uplifted by the spirit of those around me who gave me the feeling that it would be impossible, that he would not win. I know John McCain has his supporters but I have never heard of thousands of people being left outside of a McCain rally. So although I could not see Obama, I had hope. About one week and a half later, Obama revisited South Florida at the Bank of America center in Sunrise, Fla. This time I was prepared as I arrived about 7 hours before his speech. There was at least 3 hours worth of lines ahead of me of people who were there before me. I had faith that I would make it into the center and I did. While standing in line for hours, I witnessed an America that I did not know I lived in. The sense of unity was so strong that I believe if someone would of dropped a hundred dollar bill, everyone would have ran to give it back to them. It was that deep. I was surrounded by toddlers and elders, rich and poor and yet we all had one thing in common, change. It took me 7 hours to secure a seat inside the center on the front row of the nose bleed section and it was worth every minute.

To both my delight and surprise, Obama recorded a live infomercial from the center that was televised across America and I was apart of it. As excited as I was to see him, I must admit when he came out I did not faint. I expected to have this rock star moment and scream hysterically and maybe even cry. I did nothing but stare at him in awe. The moment that made me tremble did not come until after 11:30 pm on November 4th when it was announced that he was the winner. I was at an election party in Philly, surrounded by my peers and political representatives both young and old. When it was announced that he won I was standing up, I immediately fell, thankfully into the chair behind me. My mouth dropped, I was speechless and I couldn’t even hear the screams around me. I just stared at the screen showing Grant park in Chicago where Obama would be giving his acceptance speech. I didn’t notice the tears rolling down my face until I saw Jesse Jackson on the screen crying and realized we were doing the same thing. Honestly, the only thing that could top how I felt at that moment will be the birth of my first child or my wedding day. I still can not put into accurate depiction how I felt. Senator Vincent Hughes from Pennsylvania suggested that we all hold hands and pray. Somehow I ended up holding the hands of an elderly woman and of a middle aged man. As Senator Hughes said a prayer for every “cotton picking slave”, I could not take it. I cried like a baby and I squeezed the hands of my peers. After the prayer, I called my grandparents and great grandparents and asked them could they believe it. They could not. Change indeed has come.

The next day in the airport on the way back to Miami, I wore my Obama shirt. I expected to get a reaction but not the type of reaction I received. Most people just looked at me with no emotion. One guy even yelled at me “Obamanation” which is derogatory for abomination. All the support and love that I had experienced the night before made me forget that 47% of the country was sad, to put in light terms. One thing I did remember was a line from Obama’s acceptance speech and that is “He will be your president too”! Change has come and there is no need to think about the should of, could of or would of’s. In order to move forward we must come together as one country and unite. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream but today we have reality.