History

Yes. I was there.

On November 4, 2008, election day, me and four other women from the OTS (Jenna, Vanessa, Cybele and Alisa) drove down to Chesterton, Indiana to encourage Obama supporters to get out and vote. We were excited and nervous. It was a perfect day: sunny and warm and the colors on the trees in Indiana were beautiful.

photo by Vanessa
We got our packet from the volunteer headquarters on Main Street and drove out to our little areas where we knocked on doors of know supporters to remind them to vote and where to do so. Lots of folks weren't home and we left door knockers. Lots of folks had dogs and we almost got our faces eaten by some rottweilers who were as tall us us when they jumped up against the storm door with enough force to push it open. But their owner was nice and was on his way to vote as soon as he raked his yard. One lady said she probably wouldn't vote, because she had to work and didn't have time. We tried to encourage her just a little bit. Another lady said she wouldn't vote because she wouldn't have time between picking up kids and grocery shopping and stuff, but if she had should would have voted for McCain. We did not encourage her. Way to not vote, lady!

photo by Vanessa
Here's me, Jenna and Vanessa, one of the door-to-door groups. We ate snacks back at headquarters and ran into some girls who take classes at OTS and perform a lot around Chicago. They recommended the coffeeshop where we went for lunch, and after picking up a new packet at the vounteer headquarters (KFC) in Portage, the five of us split one packet and then headed back to Chicago to get ready for the rally in Grant Park. (Not all the pictures ahead are great quality, but I hope they get the feeling across. Click for bigger versions.)

Ben came home around 5:30 and Molly and Meredith came over. Molly borrowed a bike

photo by Meredith
and the four of us got dinner at Silver Palm on our way downtown. We did not have tickets to the rally but Mayor Daley had smartly realized that lots of folks were going to come down no matter what and set up an area for the non-ticketed public. There were tons of people; some had been lined up all day. We locked our bikes on Michigan Ave and walked the rest of the way with many other people. Lots of guys were selling t-shirts and buttons, and everyone was very excited. Everyone had to enter on Columbus Ave. We got there shortly before 8:30 when they opened the gates to the park. Here is the crowd lined up to get in.


photo by caural

Once they opened the gates it was more open; they were just announcing Obama had gotten Ohio. Here are our reactions as captured by Meredith, as we walked to find a place to station ourselves for the night.



There were huge video screens everywhere showing CNN. The image was great, the sound was great, the crowds were great. The people in front of the screen we were close to sat down, and everyone in the area behind followed suit, which meant we got to sit for a good hour or so.


photo by Ben
Awesome. The crowds continued to get thicker and thicker; we couldn't even see the stage that Obama was going to be on. We were a bit north of Buckingham Fountain, which is closed for construction. To get an idea of where we were, please check out this picture. They were only showing the area that is lit up on TV. We were back in that tree-filled area, about halfway between the lit up official rally area and the USA building. It was incredible. People were up in the trees and sitting on top of the portopotties and garden trellises.


photo by zenia

People were friendly. There were all kinds of people, all races, all ages. We were watching CNN, getting excited as certain states were announced. Iowa.

this and following photos by Ben

Virginia.


Cell phone reception was in and out... everyone was trying to call and text everyone and the networks were jammed up. It got close to 10 when the polls would be closing on the West Coast. By this point people were all standing, all the ground was filled in. A couple times I jumped up to try and see the crowd. Literally people as far as my eyes could see in every direction. We were waiting and listening to the pundits. Everyone was eager for the results, and CNN had a little countdown clock that everyone started chanting along to. We were ready to hear some more states' tallies released, which would be exciting. I don't think anyone was quite prepared for what came up on the screen, which you can see in this person's video. Watch in high quality.

Here's another video I like, just because of the SOUND. You can hear the cheer go from regular to extreme as everyone reads the words on the screen. OBAMA ELECTED. In case you can't imagine it, I was doing a LOT of screaming.


And this video is taken by someone who had a very similar perspective to us, and shows a good 360 degree view. In the dark, video screen ahead, a billion people.

The screaming just kept going. In waves. Everyone was so excited. Crying, jumping, screaming, laughing, yelling, dancing. It didn't die down for a long long time. We watched CNN show the very crowd we were a part of. We saw Oprah, who got a huge cheer of course, and Jesse Jackson in tears. Here's me watching the screens, taking a brief pause from screaming and jumping.


It was overwhelming.


We saw McCain's concession speech. When I saw Sarah Palin I was flooded with relief; she will never run our country. I thought the crowd responded to McCain ver well, very respectfully. I thought he gave a good speech. And then the screens changed, and CNN was gone, and there was just an image of a podium. It was the live feed from the stage a few blocks away. A black lady, I don't know who she was, came out and sang the National Anthem. You could hear it echoing several times, bouncing around from all the speakers and the buildings everywhere. She fucking nailed that song. I have never in my life been so moved or excited by my national anthem. I have also never before called it "my" national anthem. When it was over, she left the podium, and they put on "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" and some other rockin' tunes. It was a big dance party while we waited. A huge convoy of cars came past us on Lakeshore Drive-- Obama! Finally the Obama family arrived and came out on stage. More screaming, more excitement, more flooding of emotion. Unbelievable!! His speech was wonderful.

When it was finally over, the crowd slowly filtered out of the park. We waited a little while. Ben and I climbed up to see the view people had seen from the garden trellises.


photo by Meredith

Everyone had to cross one of three bridges, and they were jammed and moving slowly. Here's a view of the bridge we were on, which looked just like the view we had of the bridge north of us.

photo by rdafforn

And when we got to the end of the bridge, here was our view of Michigan Avenue (definitely worth clicking to see full size):

this and following photos by Ben



A SEA of people. State street was also like this.


And the side streets. Endless. Everyone was behaving. Everyone was happy. There were cops everywhere; we'd heard that every cop in the city was on duty that day. And look how hard they had to work to keep the crowds in line.


They were doing basically nothing but smiling, taking photos and signing peoples' T-shirts. Look at the crowds. Just amazing. We waited around for a long time, taking it in. When we finally left it was 12:30, and even then, the Milwaukee Avenue bike lane was almost completely full of cyclists heading home from the rally. The view from atop the hills was a long trail of red blinky lights stretching out ahead. We passed people ouside bars, yelling and cheering. Cars would spontaneously erupt into joyous honking. Throughout the night peoples' excitement just kept bursting out in waves of sound and movement and happiness.

We were exhausted. The next day I was hoarse and physically sore from standing on tiptoe and jumping for joy. But around the city, the feeling was palpable-- Jon Stuart said it on the Daily Show, that he was experiencing a strange New York phenomenon of EYE CONTACT! With STRANGERS! It was the same in Chicago. Like you had a connection to everyone you saw. I screeched out "This Land Is Your Land" in all of my WW classes that morning, and almost broke into tears, looking at these new little babies whose futures seemed so much more hopeful.

I'm so proud of America. Of at least a slight majority of America.

And of course, it is tinged with frustration and worry about Proposition 8, which rendered gay marriages null and void. The response is rising and I'm hoping for the wave of change to continue.

As Barack said, there's hard work ahead of us. Check out the Chicago Reader's cover the morning after the election:


Tongue in cheek, but also eager. Just like the other potential cover would have been:


Article about the controversial cover here.

Also worth posting: a great Salon article from Gen-Xers to Baby Boomers following the election.

Good job, America.