Academic

My November 4th

By Bryan Adamson

This reflection is personal. I voted this morning at my assigned precinct. Though having the option, I just could not bring myself to register to vote by mail. I wanted to make that walk. I wanted to create for myself a complete sense-memory of what I was doing today. An imagined reality transformed into a reality I never could have imagined. An African-American President.

I wanted to have and hold everything about this day. The time I woke up (5:30). What I wore (stone cordorouys). The embrace between me and my partner, anticipating history being made. The rain (light). The direction of the wind (coming at my right side). The color of the leaves (bright yellow). St. Patrick?s Church. The number of people at the precinct voting. The man who brought his barely six year old son along, and explained everything to him.

I made that walk for myself, but given the profound significance of this election, I wanted to walk to honor those whose sacrifices made this day possible for me in my lifetime, including my mom and dad.

I went to the booth, and did my thing. Walking away, my eyes started welling up. I could not experience this day without regard to my own history, and the history of my parents and fore-parents. As a 45 year-old African-American who grew up in northeastern Ohio, my young years were during the tail end of the modern civil rights movement. Straddling that movement, like-minded others in my generation were educated about the struggle through books, and absorbed the experiences of older siblings, grandparents and of course, parents. My parents, both now 71 years young, were born and raised just outside of Montgomery, Alabama. And like many African-Americans of the post-war generation, my parents moved North to make a better life for themselves, their children and, to some degree, to protect us from seeing the things they had seen.

My parents, and their parents, brothers, and sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins, endured that unique brand of Southern racism. Jim Crow segregation. Sharecroppers on land that could never be theirs. A few were victims of the most infamous ?experiment? in U.S. medical history. For myself, my first encounter with that brand occurred when I was five, during one of our many sojourns back to Alabama. At a gas station to refuel, I remember my uncle being chased out of a gas station by a man with a shotgun, my uncle yelling at my dad to ?drive! drive!? as my uncle ran to his car and his family, and then gunshots as we sped off, and as a bunch of sons and daughters, nieces and nephews cried out of fear and confusion.  It was years later when my dad fleshed out that day for me: a hamlet in Tennessee, a gas station owner who apparently didn?t give a damn about the memo announcing the death of Jim Crow, my uncle having the unmitigated gall to walk through the ?wrong? door to pay for his gas, and who never let someone call him a ?nigger.?

Lord. The racism my parents saw, heard, smelled. My parents? experiences left them with scars of cynicism, anger, fear and loathing. But the scars are nowhere near the surface of their skin. They never let those scars left by bigotry and discrimination keep them from demonstrating love, compassion, and humanity towards all.  Most importantly, they lived and loved in ways that ensured their children would not inherit those scars.

This election season, my folks let me see their scars. Dread: ?I don?t want Obama to run because someone is surely going to assassinate him.? Cynicism: ?White folks will never vote for a Black man for President.?   Fear: ?Look what happened to Martin, Malcolm, Robert.?  There was a reluctance to hope because those scars remind them that on a dime, hopes can be dashed. There was a reluctance to jump for joy or shout in victory when Obama sealed the nomination because they know full well what evils some are capable of. The belief persisted that there are not enough whites of great meaning and will to unite to defend against those who represent our worst prejudices.

So after I left the voting precinct, all of these thoughts coursed through me. I thought about my parents, and called them. I wanted to hear what they thought about this day, this possibility, given all they have seen. Given all they might have ever hoped for but still believed, in their marrow, they would never see: an African-American as President of the United States. My mom: ?I can?t describe it.? My dad: ?Mmmh.?

No jumps for joy. No shouts of victory. But my parents are exhaling, and that?s just as fine with me. The election results haven?t even been tabulated yet, but I am already walking on air. And so are they.

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Full post as published by BlackProf on November 14, 2008 (boomark / email).