As I write this, I am supposed to be working, but am too emotional and too distracted. I stood proudly and patiently to vote today for two hours at a polling place in Lansing, Michigan, that has never seen a waiting line to vote. My husband Darnay, daughter Nicole, who is 23 and my son Chris, 19 (who voted for the first time) went with me to vote as a family.
We ran into old neighborhood friends and made a lot of new friends (you get to meet new people when you stand in line for two hours). To see really young people standing in line with really old people, willing to do what it takes to have their voices heard, was an amazing thing.
We were voters 127, 128, 129 and 130 at our polls. It must have been the look on my face, that made the poll-worker who took my ballot want to tell me, "I thought you might want to know what numbers you were." She's right. Tonight when the big numbers come in, I will keep remembering 127, 128, 129 and 130.It took all the self control I had, to not burst out in tears.
I have been so emotional, and have had some terrific access to aspects of the campaign, that I have cried the whole year. Last night I cried because Barack Obama's grandmother didn't live to see this moment. A month ago I cried at a rally to hear him say "I stand here because someone believed in me."
I know what he meant. Today, I voted for Barack Obama. I cast one vote, but it was for me, and all the family that came before me who could not even imagine a moment like this. It wasn't until I got home that I had another moment. Nicole came in the room and said, "Ma, we voted for the first black president." I haven't pulled myself off the floor yet.
I don't know what the real outcome will be tonight. We know that strange things happen in elections. But I do know that just as I remember a childhood working in campaigns, as I remember being at Ernie Pyle School when John Kennedy was shot, remembering when Robert Kennedy was shot, Martin Luther King. Today I look at my son and remember casting my first vote--for Jimmy Carter. This is a day I will never forget.
Whenever something amazing happens in my life I have to anchor myself in where it comes from. I whisper to myself something my grandfather used to tell me whenever I would roll my eyes at political talk, or whine about stuffing envelopes or going to yet another awful fish fry to raise money for some candidate. He'd say, "A high price has been paid for you to be here." Today, I look at my two adult-ish kids, here having their say at the polls, showing their IDs, looking back at me. No dogs and guns. No beatings. Just a fully realized moment that my ancestors paid for on ships, in cotton fields, and in boycotts.
Today is another momentous occasion in the Collier family. My first born is going to her first day at work at our local television station. She is going to be a news assistant. Tonight she will be working from 6 pm to 4 am posting election results. I couldn't resist saying to her for the thousandth time in her life, "A high price has been paid for you to go to that station tonight--to even be able to count votes for a black man." So if tonight, at that station, it turns out that she gets to say, "Barack Obama, President Elect," I home she also tells somebody tonight, "I know that a whole lot of people paid a very, very high price for me to be here."