 "Photo: Jason Smith / For The South End")
At 11:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Nov. 4, 2008, where were you?
At that exact moment in American history, I was in Grant Park in downtown Chicago watching CNN announce Barack Obama had just been elected president of the United States.
The scene in Grant Park, and in Chicago, was that of unbridled jubilation, relief and happiness. But for me, the positive vibe started long before we jumped on I-94. At 6:45 a.m., I was standing in an extremely long line in Southfield waiting to cast my vote.
What I saw while I was there was absolutely remarkable. The line was filled with people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. I was in awe of the amount of families that were there. The numbers of fathers who brought their children was stunning.
I also saw a group of women marking three generations (a grandmother, mother and daughter) also in line. By 9:05 a.m., I had finally voted and was prepared to anxiously wait for the results with my girlfriend.
The catch to this story is that we would not be watching the results in Detroit or in Lansing, where she lives. She is a Chicago native and came up with the brilliant idea of going there to await the results.
“If we get on the road by noon, we can be in Chicago by 3 p.m. (CST),” she said.
Needless to say, we jumped on the road. Per her prediction, we were in Chicago by 3 p.m. local time, checked into a hotel in downtown Chicago and from there were off to Grant Park.
The buzz in the city was palpable. Everywhere we went, we saw street vendors selling everything from Obama t-shirts, hats, buttons and other keepsakes commemorating the day. People were friendly, excited and unbelievably positive.
There were numerous foreign tourists from places such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany in the city. A couple from Canada approached us and asked where they could get Obama buttons.
A lady, whose southern accent screamed Texas, asked us where we got our Obama t-shirts. The weather was unbelievable that day as well, with the temperatures hovering around 75 degrees. As sunset came a little before 5 p.m., the anticipation began.
We made it to Grant Park around 5:30 p.m.and staked out a spot near one of the massive jumbo screens broadcasting CNN’s coverage of the election. As the night progressed, the crowd, which by 7 p.m. local time had swelled to more than 100,000, was more like one you would see at a sporting event rather than an election night.
There were loud cheers whenever a state was called for Obama, and even louder boos whenever a state was called for Sen. John McCain, or at the mere mention of his running mate, Alaska'a Gov. Sarah Palin.
We happened to be standing next to a guy named Theo, originally from New York, but he had recently moved to Chicago. He told us how he had been predicting an Obama victory for nearly two years. Shortly after he said those words, Ohio was called for Obama, causing a raucous standing ovation.
By 9:45 p.m., Obama sat at 220 electoral votes (the winner must reach 270) and you could sense everyone in the crowd doing the math in their heads.
“The next state to go is California, which has 55 electoral votes. 220 plus 55 equals 275! My God! He’s about to win this thing!” I blurted loudly after doing some heavy thinking. At 9:58 p.m., the crowd was loudly counting down the seconds until the polls on the West coast closed.
Then, at 10:00 p.m. CST, it happened: CNN announced that Obama was projected to win California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, thus giving him 297 electoral votes and the presidency.
The cheers went up immediately. People were screaming, scrambling madly to hug someone … anyone! People were jumping up and down, and delivering high-fives. A group of young men from the U.K. started chanting “OLE! OLE! OLE!” like they were at a soccer match. Police officers were even seen hugging each other. I immediately got on my phone and called my mother.
She’s a 65-year-old retired Detroit school teacher and Wayne State alumna, who was born in rural Alabama. She was speechless, clearly holding back tears. She has told me stories of how my late grandfather, Ezra Nelson, fled the south for Detroit in the late 1940s to escape segregation and racism. She told about how my grandfather’s life was threatened for even attempting to register to vote. I did everything I could to make sure I voted to honor what my grandfather went through.
By 10:15 p.m., the loud cheers and screams had turned into a calm silence. The people in Grant Park, by this point in excess of 250,000, stood in awe of the words “Barack Obama Elected President” displayed on the screen. CNN analyst Roland Martin broke down in tears and those in the crowd soon followed. As my girlfriend and I took in all this emotion, I saw grown men hugging their wives, sons and daughters. There were people crying with huge smiles on their faces.
The jubilation had turned into a moment of collective catharsis. Everyone was finally able to release. For some, it was the end of a two-year marathon campaign. For many blacks, it was the startling realization that we were experiencing something that many of us never thought we would see in our lifetimes. For the first time, this country looked past something as trivial as race and, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, weighed a man on the content of his character.
As President-elect Obama gave his acceptance speech, he said “Change has come to America”, and no truer words had ever been spoken. It clearly had come in a very resounding manner. In the mass of people who were in Grant Park, the Chicago Police Department reported that there were no arrests made that night. Not one. Out of 250,000 people, there were no disturbances. No damages. No fights. There were simply spontaneous amounts of emotion.
As the massive crowd poured into the streets of Chicago, the scene was one of happiness and true patriotism. People of all races were still hugging each other. Young black men were running down Michigan Ave. waving American flags and singing the national anthem. White people were still in tears and celebrating Obama’s victory.
I overheard a young man from Anchorage, Alaska, who had made the trip to Chicago to be there for the celebration, saying, that he would remember that night for the rest of his life. My girlfriend and I both felt the same way.
On a night when change came to America, we had a front row seat for history. I’m not a man who cries in public, but being three generations removed from slavery, I shed tears of joy for not just that moment, but for history as well.
