In an earlier blog posted in October, I reflected on my experience of voting during the recent presidential election and what a moving experience voting was for me the day I cast my ballot. It was a Sunday afternoon in Houston when I stopped at an early voting place in my neighborhood, got in a line of voters about a quarter mile long, inched along for about an hour, walked through the certification process, step up to the new fangled voting booth and scrolled through the long list of candidates and pressed the big red button marked “cast”. I voted… then I cried. I’m not a person prone to random tears but this experience was far from a normal voting day.

Well last Tuesday was very different. I flew across country to watch the Presidential inauguration on television with my daughters. We all gathered around the TV and celebrated, conversed, and cheered from the comfort of our hotel room as if we were right there on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

What a phenomenal day that was, not because a person of African and American decent was elected to our nation’s highest office but because of what President Obama’s election represented for millions (and possibly billions) of children around the world who could see the possibilities of hard work, determination, education, faith practice, political action, community organizing, friend making, and basketball as hobby versus vocation.

That entire day was consumed with cheering!

I cheered as I reflected on the sacrifices made by countless men and women of all races for the right to vote in America. A right that came to pass in spite of barking dogs, water hoses, nightsticks and armed militias.

I cheered as I recalled the murder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that ultimately led to the creation of the Voting Rights Act.

I cheered as I remembered my Auntie Mae Mae’s commitment to the right to vote as she and her friends stood on street corners campaigning for their candidates of choice ultimately managing elections at “colored only” polling places under the close scrutiny and intimidation of poll watchers.

I cheered as I thought about the power my mother most have experienced in the old days when the thick heavy curtain of vintage voting booths closed around her, protecting her privacy as she picked me up allowing me to turn the levers for her candidates of choice giving me my first glimpse of what freedom really meant in America.

I cheered not because a Black person won the race but because the best person (my opinion) won the race and that person was from the out side of the political mainstream prior to emerging as a contender.

I cheered some more as I reflected on a recent phone call from my two daughters who shared their youthful enthusiasm regarding participating in this years election and being present with them on the day they discovered that their vote made a difference.

And finally, I cheered because my dad loved the political process but died four years ago on the 4th of July before having an opportunity see, discuss, experience, debate, curse, complain, and vote in this years monumental election.

I know Barack is only one guy who took some steps and some risk that just happened to have turned out all right, but I cheered because I was reminded of the power that each one of us has in making a difference in our world.

Hip! Hip! Hoooooray!!

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