- Photo by: forota/flickr
My neighbors across the hall are first generation African immigrants. A hard working, young family with two little ones trying to live the American Dream. The little boy, who started school this year, is apparently already politically astute…I could hear him chanting, O-bam-a, O-bam-a, O-bam-a this morning!
I was out of the house by a quarter to 7 and in the voting booth by a little after 7 AM. I was lucky because the precinct right next to ours (so close I could see them from inside our precinct) had a line that snaked halfway down the block.
The excitement in the air is palpable. People are stopping to make eye contact and speak for a change instead of rushing around. They are leaving the voting booth with smiles on their faces.
Most people reporting through Twitter and Facebook said that they are had reasonable wait times, but I have received one message that there is a Harlem precinct with an excessive wait period. Another person sent word that some people are losing their cool and the authorities have had to intervene. She asked me to remind people that today is not about you, it’s about the bigger picture. Great advice.
The Times has published a few stories of early voters already. Excerpts after the jump.
Upper Harlem
There were long lines at the Frederick B. Samuel Community Center, on Malcolm X Boulevard and 144th Street, where more than 50 voters stretched from the front door, through the lobby and up a staircase and into the crowded voting room.
Linda Moses, 46, came and voted with her daughter, Ebony, 22, and her mother, Gloria, 64. All three voted for Obama, they said.
“We got three generations here, and we’re voting for Obama,” said Linda Moses. “The whole family is coming out to vote because we believe that it’s an important occasion. We hope that, like, you know we want to be amazed that it’s Obama. We don’t want to be shocked. It’s time for a change, like they say.”
Linda Moses said she felt both races and issues were important, this Election Day.
“It’s about both,” she said. “We want to make history — the first black president — and we want a change.”
Central Harlem
Just before 6 a.m., Kimberly Ferguson was 12th in line outside the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building on 125th Street in Harlem, steps from the legendary Apollo Theater. Inside, workers were readying a single booth, one that rocked upon exit and entry as through in a wind storm and whose curtains resembled a pair of grommeted trash bags. By 6:10, as they tinkered with the machine, Ms. Ferguson, 20, groaned. Rumors of a problem filtered through the line, one that included postal carriers and nurses, people whose day often begins before the opening of the coffee shop.
But spirits were light. One woman plucked a digital camera from her purse and photographed her neighbor as they waited in line. In lieu of the smile-inducing “Cheese!” he said “Obama!” Producing a wide grin and victory symbol. ” I got here early so I could make it to class,” Ms. Ferguson said, shouldering a backpack of books with an orange peeking out of its side pocket.
Ms. Ferguson, who is a sophomore at Lehman College and whose mother is a pediatrician, appeared anxious. She clutched her voter registration form and watched carefully as an elderly woman in a leopard jacket and black cat-eye glasses tinkered with the machine. Today would be Ms. Ferguson’s
first-ever vote. And what lured her away from some extra shut-eye? She was voting, she said, for Barack Obama. Asked why, her solemn face melted to a grin.“I want to be part of history,” said Ms. Ferguson, who is majoring in black studies and minoring in education. All of her friends, she added, were also voting for Mr. Obama.
A few blocks away, at 7:15 a..m., a long-ago school girl, Johnnie Simmons, emerged with a smile after voting at Public School 79 on 120th Street and Madison Avenue. She’d waited one hour to vote as poll workers cleared what she described as minor, last-minute details.
“Who do you think?” she answered with mock exasperation when queried about her electoral choice. “Barack.”
Related: Pre-Dawn Crowds in Harlem [NYO] :: Feet in 2 Worlds :: Guardian :: Harlem sees Obama bid as History [AFP]
Posted on November 4, 2008 by D. Bell