Residents astounded, ecstatic about Obama's election victory
By: Melissa Merli
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Photo by: Heather Coit
Despite his T-shirt, which was a gift from his girlfriend, University of Illinois associate Professor and comics artist/scholar John Jennings does not consider Barack Obama a messiah or Superman. But he views Obama's election to the presidency as a monumental shift for the country, one that has Jennings feeling reborn.
John Jennings cast the first vote in his Champaign precinct Tuesday, and he surprised himself by how emotional he'd felt.
"I was thinking about my grandparents and how I came up in Mississippi in this rural, painfully impoverished fashion," he said. "My grandparents were illiterate – they couldn't even have read a ballot – and I'm about to vote for the first African-American president.
"It moved me to tears."
The Champaign man spent Tuesday evening at an election/birthday party, "crying like crazy" when it became clear that Barack Obama had won the presidency. Like Obama, Jennings was surrounded by people who reflected the multicultural crowd that showed up in Grant Park.
Jennings said he was moved by John McCain's concession speech as well; the only thing that disappointed him was McCain's saying it was a great day for black Americans.
"No, it's a great day for all Americans," Jennings said. "This whole 'other-ing' thing needs to stop. That's what got us into this mess."
Still, Jennings felt reborn Wednesday, which happened to be his 38th birthday.
"I woke up in America," he said. "I could almost smell the amber waves of grain and see the purple mountains. I can actually talk to a child now and say, 'You can be president.'
"Before, you were kind of lying. I'm saying the narrative of America is now matching or starting to match what's going on in our country."
Jennings, an associate professor in graphic design at the University of Illinois, had been skeptical of pre-election polls that put Obama ahead. He also had not expected to see a black president in his lifetime.
"I have seen firsthand the cruelty of racism because of how I grew up," he said. "It was very blatant in a small town. I had become extremely jaded. You can look at my artwork. It's angry. It's angry on purpose. I have to rethink about how I deal with these things. I still want to agitate people and be vigilant.
"It's a new day, but we have to roll up our sleeves and work for a better future for our progeny and for all people in America."
No more stories
Erma Bridgewater watched TV alone on election night, staying up till midnight to see as much as she could, and as the tears welled up and fell down her face she thought of her late husband, Cecil.
He would have loved the historic moment, too, she said. Seeing Obama and his family walk out on that stage in Chicago's Grant Park to a swollen crowd of supporters stands out as one of the happiest times in her life.
"A glorious time," she said.
Bridgewater will be 95 this month, and as so many others have said, she never thought she'd see the day.
As a young woman growing up in Champaign, her family scraped by so she could attend the UI. Black students weren't allowed to eat on campus in the 1930s, so she remembers buying one of the large Mr. Goodbar chocolate bars and an apple each day from a lunch wagon outside the library. She ate her meal in the women's restroom in the library.
She graduated in 1937 with a degree in psychology and sociology.
"And guess what my first job was?" she asked. "A maid at Newman Hall!"
Eventually she got a job with the city of Champaign in the department of recreation working at Douglass Center. She stayed with the city for 25 years.
On election night, her daughter called to share the moment when it became clear Obama had won.
"She said the same thing I did. 'We did it!'" They cried. They saw others crying on television. "I guess it was tears of happiness."
Now she thinks that in this time of significant change, it's time for her to make a change in her own life.
For many years, she'd told her children and grandchildren the stories about not being allowed to eat on campus and of other encounters she'd had with prejudice.
"But to have Obama come along and win this election, now I know it's time to stop talking about it," she said.
Bridgewater has heard so many young people say that because of Obama's victory, they think they can do anything.
"It's a new day," she said. "There are new possibilities. New hope."
A trim and a shave
At the North First Street Barber Shop in Champaign some 18 hours after the presidential race ended, the men getting trims and shaves talked up Obama – their candidate.
Thomas A Johnson Sr., a 65-year-old getting a cut from barber Joe Taylor, admitted he'd cried watching Obama and his family walk onto the stage in Grant Park.
And a touching moment for him was when Obama said, "I didn't get your vote, but I need your help. I'm your president, too."
"And then they showed people around the world rejoicing because Obama won," Johnson said. "That was awesome.
"I would have loved for my brother to be living to have witnessed this."
Johnson's brother was John Lee Johnson, the well-known community activist who at the time of his death in 2006 was eulogized as a fighter for social justice.
"I just can't imagine," Johnson said, what it would have meant to John Lee.
"This was something no one ever thought would happen. And I was part of it – I voted. And all those young people that stood out there in that park took part in history, too, and if the cameras would have showed it close, they would have seen tears rolling. Tears of joy."
In the next barber chair, African-born Ebenezer Duodo, 26, said he watched the election results at home but then went to be with his friends to start rejoicing.
"It brought pride to us," he said. "It brought a sense of awareness to us that a black man can do anything. When they pronounced him president of America, it was a tear-moving time. I felt that emotion."
Former Marine Allen Jenkins III, now 41, has always been vested in elections and voting, and he hopped on board the Obama train early in the campaign. He sat in the barber shop with a fixed smile, saying he'd voted at 6:30 a.m. and hadn't minded the hour wait in line.
"I believe (Obama's victory) represents a lot of positive energy for everybody," he said. "New life."
"I've traced my family tree back to enslavement here in the U.S., and we had four generations at the dinner table last Thanksgiving talking about how life has changed. We've got a long way to go but this is a big step. This is a very big step. This is awesome."
And as the descendant of a great-grandmother who picked cotton and was a household caregiver in Arkansas, Jenkins feels pride in himself and in the people of the U.S.
If he could send Obama a congratulatory message it would say: "Remember everything it took to get where you are – because it wasn't easy."
Mother foretold it
In Danville, 86-year-old Ivadale Foster remembers how her mother often predicted that a black man would be elected president in the latter days. Foster didn't believe her then.
"Well, I won't live to see it happen, but you will," her mother, Edwarda Foulks, had said.
"Her prophecy came true. It was in the Bible, that the people of color would come forth and be able to rule the world," Foster said.
Though she had doubted her mother, who died in 1955, Foster later came to believe that Obama, when he first began campaigning for the White House, would win.
For Foster, Election Day was a "glorious" day; in fact, she called it the best day of her life.
A longtime precinct committeewoman, election judge and former Vermilion County board member, Foster, who had worked to get out the vote for Obama, watched the returns with other Vermilion County Democrats at the David Palmer Civic Center in Danville.
When it became apparent that Obama had won, she, as did everyone, clapped, shouted and hollered.
Like many, she believes the election of the first black man in U.S. history to the nation's highest office already has moved race relations forward.
"It will continue to do so. It's for the best. The same blood runs through all of our veins. We're all God's children but we make the difference."
Divine intervention
Two days after Obama's victory, Aaron Ammons still felt emotionally high. He and a few friends had just passed some young African-American men on the street in downtown Champaign. They only had to shout "Obama!" to elicit cheers.
It's like nothing he'd experienced before. Election night, he felt a sense of awe and at times felt speechless.
"I picked my 7-year-old up out of bed, and I took him to the TV to watch when Barack walked out on the stage in Grant Park," Ammons said. "I said, 'Look, there's the president of the United States!'
"Now he knows the 44th president, and he has a perception about what he can do. There are no limits now. And that to me, as a black father, means the world."
Ammon's friend, Robert Walker Sr. of Champaign, who founded the National Council of African American Men, said the election means that Martin Luther King's dream is now a reality.
"What Barack Obama is proposing is that irregardless of our past, we're at a point where we can look forward to change. He offered us hope for a new day. He offered inspiration to our youth. And we got a feel for what is possible. And change IS possible. So what Barack is saying to me inspires me to continue doing exactly what I'm doing – going out spreading the word, informing our youth and citizens that change is not only possible – change is here!"
Ammons and Walker sought souvenir copies of The News-Gazette showing the full front-page picture of Obama. They were joined by the Rev. Jerome Chambers of Liberty Temple Ministries in Champaign and Kim Simpson of Champaign, a member of the board of the National Council of African American Men.
Just moments before, the four men had appeared on WEFT radio talking about Obama's victory. On leaving, as they walked to The News-Gazette, they agreed they should sit down with a tape recorder and document their thoughts about the historic happening.
No sooner had they paid the receptionist for the papers, a reporter approached – "Could I talk with you about a story I'm doing on Obama's election?"
Divine intervention is what Chambers called it as the four sat around the tape recorder moments later.
Pumped up. Excited. Motivated. These are the words he used to describe his feelings for the future. He and the others plan to hire a bus to take local residents to Washington for the inauguration in January.
They want to hold breakfasts and seminars within the community to talk about making positive change.
"I see the look of jubilation on faces," Chambers said. "We see in this man, a man who's been able to bridge the gap and say though you may not have voted for me I will still be your president."
Simpson, a former Marine, said he met Obama three years ago in Champaign. The two met in a hotel hallway, exchanged words and after the brief encounter, Simpson said the first words that came out of his mouth were, "That man will be president."
At the time, Obama was a state senator and there'd been no talk of him seeking a national office.
"It was a vision from the Lord," Simpson said. "I could see he was a different type of person."
Walker said the impact of Obama's election is inspiring him and others. Giving them ideas. Promising hope.
More than 40 years ago, King talked about his dream for America.
"I'm just proud to be an American," Walker said. "Not just for the sake of Barack Obama becoming president. But I'm awake now. Now, the dream is a reality."
How far we've come
In Danville, Alice Payne, who lived through the civil rights era, felt elated and astounded by how far in her lifetime we've come in that an African-American could be elected president.
Payne, 60, principal of Meade Park Elementary School, said there had been no reason before for her to consider an Obama presidency a possibility.
"I had followed him as a state legislator over the years," she said, "and when he spoke before the Democratic convention in 2004, I didn't think he would be president, but I thought this man would go far."
Like many Americans, she watched the election returns with a large group of people, in her case at a Danville restaurant.
"Everyone was extremely happy."
She believes Obama's election and his campaign have resulted in a huge shift in race relations in this country, helped along by a younger generation that voted heavily for Obama.
"The young generation – they've not gone through the same situations that the baby boomers have," she said. "They see things differently.
"They realize, though, that the opportunities they have now came because they're standing on the shoulders of those who really had to work hard during the civil rights movement."