Osborn Savage and James Hill, both in their 80s, retraced the history they were witnessing Election Day from a bench outside their housing complex in Harlem around 11 a.m. as black voters cast a presidential ballot for one of their own. “This is something I didn’t think I would see in my time,” said Hill, 89.
Twelve hours later, these two friends of 50 years, who took part in civil rights protests in the 1960s, would see history made as Barack Obama was elected the United States’ 44th President – and its first African-American chief executive.
“It makes me proud,” Savage, 84, said of Obama. “I didn’t think he’d get this far.”
An Obama Mania
Earlier Tuesday, Obama’s candidacy fueled the voter lines that snaked around polling places throughout the five boroughs as people waited, many joyfully and without complaint, to pull levers on the city’s 46-year-old voting machines. Obama-mania had supporters making cookies in Brooklyn, designing hoodies in Dumbo and even buying “Bark for Obama” sweaters for their dogs in Union Square.
In one of the world’s most diverse cities, the Obama candidacy overcame language, culture and religion. On the front page of Desi Talk, one of the city’s Indian-American newspapers, a letter from Obama on the festival of Diwali, the Festival Lights, spoke of the “celebration of illumination over ignorance.” In Queens, the new face of politics was an old man in a long white beard, a 76-year-old Sikh American voting for the first time.
While leery of both candidates’ aggressive talk about Pakistan, a Muslim country, most of the people at a Queens mosque thought Obama would best represent them.
“We don’t care if he’s Christian, Jewish or Muslim. We just care about this country because this is our home,” said Mohammad Younas, a 50-year-old Pakistan-born voter from Woodside, Queens.
Holding Out Hope
Despite the overwhelming Obama momentum in the city, McCain-Palin supporters never gave up the fight no matter how small the victory. Several joined a bus caravan last weekend to push for votes in swing-state Pennsylvania. A group called McCain Manhattan Tuesday afternoon established a lone beachhead on a traffic island in Times Square.
“We won on this piece of rock,” said Phil Caracci, the group’s leader “This is our traffic island, so it’s very exciting.”
The Young Count
The Obama campaign’s effect on the young was palpable around New York. College students for weeks had volunteered in Obama offices throughout the city. Seven-year-olds designed homemade election buttons and campaign posters. Tuesday, toddlers clung to parents’ hands in polling places and young men rode bicycles through the streets of Harlem, calling Obama’s name.
But it was the generation of Savage and Hill, back in Harlem, that seemed most overwhelmed by the historic day. Just a couple blocks from where they shop most days on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the 84-year-old Savage waxed philosophic.
Like so many of his generation who’ve gone through so much, he realized there is still much to do if Obama is elected.
“I’ll be very happy, but he’ll still have a Congress to deal with.”
Still, he couldn’t help looking forward.
“Things take a while,” Savage said. “But we’re getting there.”
