I listened to Obama's speech standing next to taxicabs in the street,
in Times Square, tears running down my face, when CNN's Jumbotron lost
the signal and we surged into the street to listen on the car and taxi
radios, because we would not be denied hearing that speech. Cars and taxis, stuck in the crowd, lowered their windows and turned up the sound, Arab, South Asian and African drivers grinning, grinning, so we could hear Obama's speech.
I stood in the street, grinning, while people danced outside Madiba on
DeKalb in Fort Greene, Brooklyn at 1:30 am, at the most amazing spontaneous street party that had been going on for hours. People drumming on pot lids and kitchen tools, spontaneous "mobbing" in the center of the street, parading after cars w/Obama signs, engulfing bike riders.
2 different 20something black men struck up conversations with me (50something white woman) in Moe's,the local bar where I had watched the debates on the big screen with a very mixed crowd. We agreed that it is the most amazing evening. The first one said to me, "I would never have spoken to you before tonight, but tonight is different, now I know we are all the same." I watched the cops grinning at the street party outside Moe's, and yelled and screamed and waved my arms with the crowd when buses went by,causing the people in the bus to go "up and down"!
I laughed with delight as the manager of my favorite restaurant told me
of standing behind the bar at his restaurant on Greene St. knowing that
Obama had won because he could hear the roar of excitement and delight
that spontaneously burst forth all across the Fort Greene neighborhood backyards as the networks announced that California would go for Obama at 11 pm Eastern.
And North Carolina, North Carolina went for Barack and Libby poisonous Dole is finished.
Just as I was about to give up on it, America makes me so proud, that I
have to fall in love all over again with the amazing secular religion
that is the philosophy underlying the American constitution.
How extraordinary to have lived through a moment when America actually
lives up to her promise. How proud I am.
Where were you when you heard the news?
What joy!