It’s Been a Long Time Coming

Yesterday I arose early to go get in line to vote. I arrived at the polls for my voting district in Pembroke Pines, Florida at 6:30. There were perhaps fifty people in front of me. By the time the polls opened at 7:00, there was an additional fifty behind me. The line proceeded quickly and efficiently. When I entered the building, an African-American woman donning a yellow “Yes We Can” t-shirt was picking up a “My Vote Counted” sticker. Several tears gently rolled down her cheeks. Did her tears stem from reflecting about how far our society has come since the days it saddled itself with the “peculiar institution” that was the scar that marred the face of American democracy? I did not speak to her about what she was feeling at that very moment. However, her tears triggered in me thoughts of an historical nature.
I wonder if she knew that prior to the Sahara Desert becoming too vast to cross easily that there was no racial prejudice. The African civilization of Kush traded and interacted with the other cultures over three millenium ago until the Nubians became isolated due the deserts huge expanse.
I wonder if this woman was aware that until the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hagel proposed his theory behind racial superiority in the early nineteenth century, that all races were on equal footing.
I wonder if she knew of the strides that freed slaves made during reconstruction were abruptly ceased following a trade off between North and South to decide the 1876 Presidential election.
I wonder if she knew how many African Americans lost their lives trying to gain voter rights. Right here in her home state, the town of Rosewood which was included in the 1920 census was not in 1930 due to a racial hatred so severe that the town no longer existed. Similar racial atrocities occurred in the towns of Ocoee and Micanopy as well. I always cringe a little when I see their exit signs when traveling through central and northern Florida.
I wonder if she knew that 83% of American born African-Americans are, to some degree, of mixed blood.
I’m pretty sure she must be aware Barack Obama was born of a white mother. Barack Obama is not America’s first African-American President regardless of what Katie Couric, Wolf Blitzer, and scores of other election night analysts seem intent on reinforcing. The lone beacon of clarity was Sharee Williams of CBS4 local news. She correctly declared upon hearing of the deciding electoral projections, that “America has elected their first bi-racial President.” Personally, I don’t care about his or anybody else’s racial or ethnic heritage. But I don’t understand the constant need to label individuals. It would make sense that if the talking heads downplayed race and ethnicity, eventually no one would give a shit, save the diehard bigots.
The media declared Tiger Woods African-American, though his mother is Thai, and he is also of European and Native-American extraction. Derek Jeter, as far as the sports media is concerned, is African-American, while his genealogy is mixed. The same goes for Mariah Carey and many others. Doesn’t it make sense to just say “bi-racial?” This topic could probably fuel blogs for many weeks to come.
I wonder if the teary eyed women thought of all the people who came before Barack Obama who made his quest for the country’s highest political office possible.
W.E.B. DuBois, the first man of African-American lineage to receive a Phd. from Harvard, and a founding member of the NAACP. Booker T. Washington, a philosophical rival of Dubois’ who once dined at the White House with President Theodore Roosevelt; Marcus Garvey, The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, or Malcolm X, Carl Stokes, Shirley Chisholm, Julian Bond, Andrew Young, all paved the way for yesterday’s moment in history. No less historic was where Barack Obama delivered his victory speech.
I wonder if the woman knew what occurred forty years ago at Grant Park in Chicago, where an enormous throng of well-wishers enthusiastically roared their approval of the new President-elect. In 1968, hundreds of protesters disenchanted with the state of their country, were beaten and arrested. The crowd last night was no less discontented with the current state of affairs. The election of Barack Obama allayed their frustration temporarily, his compelling four minute address gave hope to the multitudes present, and those watching at home.
Following John McCain’s gracious concession speech to a not so gracious audience, Barack Obama addressed the gathered masses armed with words overseen by his twenty-six year old head speech writer.
Not since Abraham Lincoln has someone said so much with so little. He even paid homage to the 16th President. By the time he concluded the inspiring and poignant tale of one hundred and six year old Atlanta voter Ann Nixon Cooper; the trials and tribulations she witnessed, and in many cases he cited, endured; for the first time since 9/11, I felt truly proud to be an American. I wonder if the lady in the “Yes We Can” t-shirt knew I too could be moved to tears.