Your Vote. Our History.

Meet the voters of Election 2008. Read their history-making stories.

Geraldine Britt with fiance James Nickson.

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Nov. 4, 2008–

Geraldine Britt

Silver Spring, Md.

When you get older, you like to think you’ve seen it all. Nothing can surprise you. Well, week after week during this presidential campaign—even after I should have gotten used to it—Barack Obama’s ascendency surprised me. At age 84, I have hundreds of memories of conflict between whites and blacks. Who knew so many people, white and black, would support a black presidential candidate?

And yet today I stood in line and voted for Barack Obama. I lived a day I never thought I’d see. For the first time in my life, I felt I was a part of history. I’ve lived through the Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement—but this was different. It was as if my one vote was multiplied—I didn’t feel like I was alone. To vote for a somebody who knows what it’s like to have suffered being African American in this country. Who isn’t part of that society that always thinks that what they think and see and want is what should be. So many people can feel it—because white and brown and Asian people identify with this man, too. I felt I was part of a force that is earth-shattering.

You have to have lived it to understand. It’s like ice cream—someone can tell you that it’s cold and sweet but until you taste it, it has no meaning.

My grandmother was born four years after slavery ended. She was herding cows at age 9 with no shoes; she would wait for a cow to get up and stand there to warm her feet. Life was work and work and work. … Like most black women then, she worked as a maid—”at service,” as she called it. She was the cook and downstairs maid for white family in Media, Pa., the Darlingtons. She walked five blocks to work, though the Darlingtons had two cars. I said, “Nana, they would drive you home.” And she said, “Never let white people know what you’ve got.” She couldn’t let them know she had scrimped to buy a nine-room brick house.

I remember the pride people had those days, even if you were a maid. Nana often said, “If it’s good for them, it’s good for me.” So if the Darlingtons had sterling silverware, ours was plated. It’s appalling how so many people, black and white, have lost the sense of pride. I think Obama instills it in people. In truth, he’s not the only Obama in America. We have thousands of eloquent black doctors and lawyers and teachers and professors—but those people aren’t in the sights of millions of white people.

In the 1940s, when I graduated from Temple University, I was invited to a white instructor’s apartment in a Philadelphia high-rise. When I walked into the building, a doorman asked why I was there. When I told him, he politely turned me around, took me through the kitchen and up the back steps to her apartment. I couldn’t go through the front door—and this was in Philadelphia, the “cradle of liberty.” All the wonderful feelings I had about Temple disappeared. Things like that taught you never to trust white people.

So you would have thought black people would throw their arms around a candidate like Obama. But it took a while to for them to embrace him. Black people are weary. And wary. I don’t mean they’re wary of Barack, but of the system. Before Obama, black people were tired of hoping. Barack Obama inspires people to hope, and that’s scary. With his brilliance and charm and desire for great change—does he realize the bull he’s taken by the horns?.

When I first saw Barack, he was running for the Senate in Illinois. You could tell he was bright. He had the bearing of an aristocrat, but talked like a common denominator. I thought, “He could be one of the ones to make a change.” America needs him.

I’m glad he came at a time when he could walk through the front door—of the White House.

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Emebeat Bekele

Washington, D.C

Before Election Day it was all about Barack. But today, when I was standing in line to cast my vote, I saw all those people with wheelchairs and walkers standing in line, too. It made me realize it was about more than Barack. I realized how big this thing is: It’s overwhelming huge! All those people, standing on line, determined.

In the beginning it was just like “We have to get him elected.” But when I cast my vote, I felt it wasn’t about Barack; it was about democracy. It was about making people equal and empowering every single person.

It gives me the assertion that people are ultimately powerful. It doesn’t matter if you’re poor or if you’re Bill Gates—everyone gets one vote. I feel like democracy is really in play and the fact that so many people are exercising democracy—all those people standing on line—is just a wonderful feeling.

I just want this feeling of empowerment to go on forever. The young people, I hope they never forget this. These politicians spend all this money to get these votes.

This has gone beyond him. He started the process. Barack and his campaign have started a movement. He gave us a shared purpose.

Once he’s elected, I feel like the entire world is going to change. Because it’s not just about Barack Obama. It’s not just about one person. This movement is a movement. It will be a phenomenon that will be duplicated worldwide.

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Jimmie Howard

Atlanta

My day began with me waking up this morning around 10 a.m. with a feeling of responsibility. So after taking a shower and getting dressed, I began walking to my polling place, Miller Grove Jr. High School in Decatur, Ga.

On my way there, I began to prepare myself for a long line of voters. To my surprise, there weren’t many people there after all. In one way, I was excited because that meant that I would be in and out in no time. In another way, I was wondering if people actually got their butts out of bed to go vote. The volunteers said that they had a big crowd earlier in the morning, but I felt like there are too many people in this area for it to not be crowded all day long. Hopefully, people didn’t buy into the media hype about Obama being so far ahead and decide that their vote wouldn’t matter.

On a positive note, it felt good to see other young black males doing the same thing as me, walking down the street to cast their votes. I ran into one guy who looked like he was barely old enough to vote. He had on a Domino’s Pizza uniform, so he was probably headed to vote before going to work. He stopped me to ask if I knew where Miller Grove Jr. High was located, and I said, “You’re headed in the right direction. Just keep going.”

America is headed in the right direction, so we just have to keep going. I know for me, it felt good to show off my sticker that says, “I am proud to be a Georgia Voter.” Home of the brave.

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L. Sonny Young and wife, Beverly

Springfield, Ohio

I am very excited at this time in my life about the part that my wife, Beverly, and I are playing in this 2008 election. It is an honor to have my business, a beauty salon, be the Southside Obama campaign headquarters for the city of Springfield, Ohio. In our southwest corner of the state, the population is heavily Republican. Beverly and I have been so excited to work for a man who we believe will be a great leader for our country. Each time I have heard him on the TV and radio, he has inspired me to want to do even more to help him become our next commander in chief.

I missed an opportunity to hear Martin Luther King Jr. speak the night before the 1963 March on Washington. There was a big test coming up at school. But I am making up for it now. I have been working hard to turn Clark County into Obama country. I am 62 now, and I feel like I’m fulfilling something that I wasn’t able to fulfill when I was 17. I’ve been talking up Obama everywhere—even with my doctor. I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, and my doctor is a Republican. After I spent 15 minutes at one of my appointments trying to recruit him, he actually pointed to my Obama cap and said, “Where can I get one of those hats?” I took one to him on my next appointment. After the procedure, I handed the hat to the doctor. He gave me $50 and said, “Just consider that a contribution to the Obama campaign.” I have registered about 500 people over the last four months.

As I sit here in my campaign headquarters, watching all of the continuous activity of workers, I become more anxious and convinced that what we are doing is the right thing. Over the past few months, I cannot tell you how many times I have chanted, “Yes, we can.” Tonight, we’ll all see that.

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