That was the statement made by Mr. Williams, a man I registered to vote today. This afternoon, we held a small voter registration canvass in a local neighborhood in our county. We decided to do this at the last minute. The event didn’t look very promising at the start. It was scheduled for 2:00 PM and no one showed up until 2:15. We had a total of seven people. Except for two of us, everyone was a new volunteer. After a 15 minute training session we all set out down a street adjacent to the park where we met. No one answered the door at several of the houses I went to. A man was sitting on the porch of the next house; he looked surprised and not too happy to see me approach him. I told him who I was and that I was registering people to vote. As I got closer, he saw that I had an Obama 08 sticker on my shirt.
He said, "Yeah. I want to register. As we went through the form we got to the question of whether or not he had ever been convicted of a felony. He looked at me and said, "I have never been convicted of a felony or any other crime. I have worked hard all of my 50 years. I never registered to vote before because there was never anyone I cared to vote for."
He finished filling out the form, signed it, and gave it to me to mail. Then he looked at me again, hesitated, and said, "You know, I never felt like a citizen until now."
I couldn’t think of anything to say after that but, "Congratulations. I’ll drop this at the post office right away." He held out his fist and said, "Give me the Obama sign." I bumped it, smiled, and walked away.
After I left his house, it started to pour. There are thunder storms moving through our county in Virginia. Our event ended abruptly as we got all wet running to our cars. I relayed this story to my friend as I gave her a ride home. She told me that one woman she spoke to today said that this was the first time volunteers for any candidate have been down their street and she has lived in the neighborhood for most of her life. I wonder how many other streets in Virginia and other states are like this one? We registered a total of seven people on that street today and we didn’t even get to the end.
All the way home, I thought about the man I helped to register and what he said. On the one hand, I am angered and saddened that a person can live 50 years in this country and not feel like a citizen. On the other hand, I am so encouraged that a candidate like Barack Obama and a simple voter registration event can change a man’s attitude about citizenship. IMHO, this is the essence of the hope on which Obama’s campaign is based. The hope that everyone can believe that their participation in our democracy is valuable—that their vote counts.
It has been a great 4th of July so far. Happy Independence Day!