Yes, Yes We Can

I spent thirteen hours working as a poll watcher in a community that was once one of the only integrated middle class suburbs of Long Island. Uniondale is a post World War II suburb that was home to many unionized workers from the Grumman Company, which used to make airplanes and other military accessories. The community became more and more African American as Grumman became smaller and smaller.

Uniondale is a community of homeowning African Americans, families, and multiple generations. Uniondale is also a community of new immigrants, many new citizens who came into vote cloaked in memories of their countries of origin. I couldn't imagine a better place to be than Uniondale yesterday.

Throughout the day men and women, often with their children, came into the gym to cast their votes. For many, it was a first vote cast. The number of first time voters was extraordinary. I knew because it was my job to help as many people as possible cast their votes on the machines, the old-style mechanical lever machines, rather than on provisional, affidavit ballots. We kept those to a minimum, because what was most important to me was to make sure that every vote counted. There were lines at times, there was a broken machine, there were problems with the registration lists, but throughout the day, as people lined up at my table with their stories, I was filled with hope and determination. I never felt tired. I only felt invigorated. We had no contact with the outside world except for the snippets that people brought to us: the turnout was extraordinary, the turnout was beyond imagination.

Men and women hobbled in on canes and with walkers. Men and women walked so agonizingly slowly, with dignity and pain written across their faces, because of illness and injury. Men and women brought herds of children into the voting booth with them, so that their children would know what it felt like to vote for someone who looked like them.

A ninety year old white woman with a deep Southern accent walked over to me. "The worst spanking I ever got as a child was after I called a Black woman a lady," she said with tears in her eyes, still wincing from the indignity. "Today I voted for Barack Obama."

We have so much work to do. Let the hope, love, trust, eagerness, determination that I felt last night stay with us through this transition. Now the hard work begins. Now the hardest work begins, because the Bush administration has left a mess in its wake.

As I drove from the polling place last night at about ten, driving to celebrate with friends, to be in a community of people to listen to Obama make that first speech as president elect, I was speaking with my friend Wini. That's when I began to cry. I realized that I who often ignores the power that being a lawyer provides me, had helped so many people all through the day for one reason: I did know the law, I was carrying a notebook full of statutory language. The men and women who worked at the Uniondale High School polling place with me trusted me to solve some of the problems that they couldn't. Make the phone calls. Negotiate solutions. Urge the person to get the court order, not to give up.

Today the work begins. As strange as it felt last night, as I listened to his speech, I believed that Obama was elected into a different America.