Barack wins, the feelings of one black man
by George Cook www.letstalkhonestly.com 11/06/08
On Tuesday November 4, 2008 Barack Obama won the presidential election to become the 44th President of the United States. This was a great day for my family. It so moved me that I haven't been able to sleep for two days and am still trying to come to grips with the Barack Obama victory.
Everything is like a blur and I am just starting to realize on November 6 that we have a black president. Even now in my slightly delirious state I keep waiting for some reporter on Fox News to start screaming about a voter discrepancy somewhere. Most likely Alaska.
I knew I had to write something but I was just too emotional or exhausted. Probably a combination of both. That and a few celebratory Heinekens.
Election Day was very special for me and besides the 3 hour wait to vote ( which will become six hours as I age and tell the story of how I walked in six inches of snow with no shoes to vote for Obama 30 years from now ) it was a beautiful day.
Early on I drove 3 elderly African American women who were all over 75 years old to the polls. They were acting like little school girls giggling and smiling. I almost said, "Don't make me pull this car over."
But it hit me that as happy as I was that I could not really appreciate what they felt. At only forty I have not faced real overt racism. But they had, They lived through Jim Crow and segregation. They saw America's ugly side.
Their joy was really one of "We have overcome" and I knew they really appreciated and understood what was happening in their lifetime.
That made me think of my daughter who will in her lifetime think it's normal for a black man to be president and hopefully one day will see a woman attain the highest office in the land. Now when I tell my daughter she can be president I wont be talking out one side of my mouth.
All these thoughts brought a few tears to my eyes. That's a big deal for me since I can only remember crying three times in my adult life. Those three being when my great grandmother died, when my daughter was born, and when the Giants lost the Super Bowl in 2000.
I want to close by returning to those three old women I drove to the polls. Now everyone who has ever been in an old black persons home knows along with plastic covers on the furniture there are pictures of three people you will always see on the wall.
Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy.
Now they can add one more..............
George L. Cook III www.letstalkhonestly.com
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