UPTOWNflavor

6:07 AM: Polling site at 3333 Broadway

The overwhelming majority of people who walked down the street told me with great pride that they had already voted in the morning. Many looked at me as if I asked them, “Did you remember to wake up today?” The obviousness of their looks said something like, “Are you kidding? Are you serious?

Yesterday I got up at 5:30 AM. I had to report to the Frederick E. Samuel Democratic Club at 6 AM to start giving out fliers to people on their way to the voting polls. My election district was conveniently right up the block. I figured I’d be at least the third or fourth person there. When I arrived there were already 40 people on line. The line quickly swelled to 60 in a matter of minutes. An elderly woman, who I bested to the line by 30 seconds, told me that she had never seen this many people voting this early…ever. With my voter confirmation card in hand I found the right line, went in the booth, cast my ballot, and I was out the door – an hour later.

I ran over to another polling site three blocks away where my mother and brother were voting for the first time. My mother, who arrived from the Dominican Republic in 1978, had been a citizen for 18 of the 30 years she has been in the United States. She was a public school teacher for many years and even taught her students about voting in Social Studies classes. But, she had never found a candidate nor cause that was urgent enough to prompt her to cast a vote – until this year. The only person in my family who had voted before was my grandmother, who at 77 years old cast her first vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 because he reminded her of one of her favorite grandchildren (other than me, of course).

6:38 AM :Line outside P.S.192 (138th St. bet Hamilton & Amsterdam Ave)

My brother texted me from P.S. 192 to tell me that he and my mother were en route to the voting booth. I wanted to be waiting outside to see my mother’s reaction. They both came out with million dollar smiles. My mother, who this entire political season up until yesterday, had been calling me two to three times a day giving me personal campaign updates she would gather from CSPAN, NY1, and PBS. She asked me quite earnestly, “Is he going to win?” I told her, “McCain will definitely be the next president.” Upon uttering those words her smile would disappear for about 10 seconds after which she exclaimed, “Stop playing, chichi!.” I told her that I was optimistic that Obama would win, but that it was waayyyyy to early to even materialize an informed thought about who was winning. I drove her home where she could watch the election day events unfold in real-time.

7:48 AM: Lines outside one entrance of P.S. 175 (135th Street bet 7th Avd and Lenox)

My brother and I raced to the Democratic Club where along with donuts and coffee, we received one of those sandwich signs made with “Obama-Biden” posters, and four shopping bags stuffed with palm cards that people could use to see who else was on the Democratic ticket. My brother and I were lucky enough to be posted by P.S. 175, just a short walk from the headquarters. We set up a little farther back than the 100 ft. border where electioneering is prohibited.

The school had two entrances. One on 134th Street and the other on 135th Street. Most people only knew about the 134th Street entrance as the lines there reached to the corner of Lenox Ave. Many arrived well before the polls opened. The line on 135th Street maintained at a smaller, constant flow of 75-100 people until about noon. Folks who had been there since 5:30 AM were coming out at as late as 10:30 AM. Some people became hip to the fact that there were two entrances and went out to tell the others.

Governor Paterson also showed up to cast his vote and that got the crowd really excited. Part of the beauty of watching the lines was observing the cross section of people who were voting. There was no one type of person at the polls. Everyone was there, even guys I knew from just hanging around the corners. The weight of what was at stake was felt by everyone there. From about 4 PM until the polls closed less than 5% of the people who I had reminded to vote still had not voted. The overwhelming majority of people who walked down the street told me with great pride that they had already voted in the morning. Many looked at me as if I asked them, “Did you remember to wake up today.” The obviousness of their look said something like “Are you kidding? Are you serious? Are you really asking me this question?” I told them that I assumed nothing.

At 9 PM we all retreated back to the club where Assemblyman Keith Wright and others were beginning to see some of the poll results trickle down. We sat down for a couple of minutes, but my brother and I were too tired to stick around so we decided to drive around to see the neighborhood reactions. Shrine had the election results playing on a projector screen. The crowds at Harlem State Building Plaza  were cheering and chanting. By Londel’s, cars were double parked and crowds bled onto the sidewalk as everyone exploded into cheers at the announcement of Barack Obama winning Michigan by a projected margin. People were waving towels outside the windows in exact unison. You’d swear they were reacting to Eli Manning throwing the winning touchdown at the Superbowl. At La Pregunta Arts Cafe people were gathered around a large projection screen as well. By the time we got home CNN had projected that Barack Obama won Pennsylvania as well. Then, another similar projection gave Ohio to Obama. At that point my brother and I breathed a bit easier. We were fighting our exhaustion to try to stay up, but around 11PM my brother woke me up. On the television screen were the words “Obama is the new President-elect.” We were both numb. Text messages started flooding my cell phone. Crowds were crying on television. CNN cut to Senator McCain’s touching concession speech shortly thereafter, then everyone awaited Obama’s acceptance speech. My brother told me, “This is the first I’ve seen my vote decide something so big.” He couldn’t have put it better. We high fived and fell back asleep on the couch.

The Morning After…

I turned on the television to clips of Obama’s acceptance speech. The few excerpts were enough to cause my eyes to tear up. Obama wasn’t showing the emotional scattershot of someone who just won American Idol. He wasn’t in tears all choking up. His words were inspirational, but sober and proper for the challenges that lie ahead. I headed out the door to the train station.

On the 2 train an African American woman was standing with one hand on a pole and the other gripping a copy of the newspaper. I could tell she was reading about last night’s election. I could see tears running down her cheeks with each line her eyes scanned over. She would sniff and look up to see if anyone was staring at her. She dove back into the paper and tears kept coming. Another man next to me tapped his friend’s shoulder and discreetly called her attention to the lady reading the paper. “Look at that,” he said. “It’s a miracle,” his friend replied. “I just wish my mother had been alive to see this.”

When I got to my office, my mother called me. We hadn’t spoken since she had voted yesterday. I asked her jokingly, “Who won?” She replied, “You know Obama won!” I began to tell her about my day yesterday and she immediately interrupted with, “I need you to email Obama for me and tell him, number 1 to keep his promises, and number 2 not to forget to thank the Clintons for all their help.”