The fourth of November, November
I was at Grant Park on Election Night. I'd been election judging in the DG, so I didn't get to the park until late. Coming out of Union Station there was a river of people streaming down Jackson to the park...so I just jumped in. Once we got to Michigan I followed the crowd over the bridge and towards the mass of humanity in the park. I could hear CNN faintly from the huge TVs. It was just about 10 PM.
All of a sudden this huge roar just swells up out of the darkness. I started half-running towards the sound, down the street, following more people, what happened? Obama was declared the winner, Obama is president. They showed Jesse Jackson crying and I just about busted out myself. I don't mean to be ... I don't know what here, but there were so many black people and they were so happy, it wasn't like anything I've seen before. I didn't even really know where I was because there weren't any landmarks, just people everywhere, covering everything, perched in trees and lined up on the roofs of the Porta-Potties.
Along the way I'd met up with this chick who'd just moved from Botswana and voted for the first time ("Where's the telly? Can you see the telly?" she kept saying) so we headed for a place closer to the tv to watch the McCain concession.
I was moved more during McCain's speech than Obama's. (This probably has a political purpose. I don't think that guy (Obama) does much without a purpose.)
But McCain obviously didn't have to give the kind of speech he did, and given that I feel like there was some genuine animosity between them during the campaign...what he said was moving and something Obama would never say about himself - and it's something I'd like far more to remember him by than anything that's happened since the primaries.
The rest of the night is a happy mix of too many people feeling too many emotions, hugging and dancing and climbing and jumping on things they shouldn't (I climbed over the giant parkway planters in the center of Michigan Avenue in a moment of when-am-I-going-to-do-this-again?; other people climbed bus shelters and lightpoles and the Art Institute lions). I've never seen so many people in one place. But everyone was polite, no one was pushing or shoving. And the T-shirt vendors reminded me of Greece; boxes on every corner hustling hastily printed Obama shirts in every variety. I bought a shirt before the advancing wave of police swept down Michigan, then lost it running for the train. We went back to Hyde Park in a Metra crammed with happy people.
All of a sudden this huge roar just swells up out of the darkness. I started half-running towards the sound, down the street, following more people, what happened? Obama was declared the winner, Obama is president. They showed Jesse Jackson crying and I just about busted out myself. I don't mean to be ... I don't know what here, but there were so many black people and they were so happy, it wasn't like anything I've seen before. I didn't even really know where I was because there weren't any landmarks, just people everywhere, covering everything, perched in trees and lined up on the roofs of the Porta-Potties.
Along the way I'd met up with this chick who'd just moved from Botswana and voted for the first time ("Where's the telly? Can you see the telly?" she kept saying) so we headed for a place closer to the tv to watch the McCain concession.
I was moved more during McCain's speech than Obama's. (This probably has a political purpose. I don't think that guy (Obama) does much without a purpose.)
But McCain obviously didn't have to give the kind of speech he did, and given that I feel like there was some genuine animosity between them during the campaign...what he said was moving and something Obama would never say about himself - and it's something I'd like far more to remember him by than anything that's happened since the primaries.
The rest of the night is a happy mix of too many people feeling too many emotions, hugging and dancing and climbing and jumping on things they shouldn't (I climbed over the giant parkway planters in the center of Michigan Avenue in a moment of when-am-I-going-to-do-this-again?; other people climbed bus shelters and lightpoles and the Art Institute lions). I've never seen so many people in one place. But everyone was polite, no one was pushing or shoving. And the T-shirt vendors reminded me of Greece; boxes on every corner hustling hastily printed Obama shirts in every variety. I bought a shirt before the advancing wave of police swept down Michigan, then lost it running for the train. We went back to Hyde Park in a Metra crammed with happy people.