When the British surrendered at Yorktown, certifying a free America, their drums and fifes played “The World Turned Upside Down.”
That song was in my head at 11 p.m. Election Night, when on the radio I proclaimed that Barack Obama had become the 44th president of the United States; the first of African-American heritage to achieve the most powerful position in the world.
Like virtually all 41 million African-Americans, my thoughts on this historic achievement are a jumble of emotions.
Sadness for those who couldn’t be here to witness this. From my grandparents and brother, friends who’ve passed away and our community’s departed heroes and heroines.
I thought about the impact on history to come. A 2-year-old goddaughter and millions of youngsters to come who’ll always know a Black was president. I thought of the textbooks and posters that’ll now include a Black face in those portraits of presidents.
I wondered what racists will feel when they see our new president’s portrait in every federal building, installation and post office.
I imagined the conversations among the ushers, butlers, maids and household staff at the White House, many of whom are Black. What must they be thinking of the family who’ll occupy that famed house Jan. 20th?
On many levels, the election of a Black man as president is a radical concept for this country and world to contemplate. Radical and yet a basic reaffirmation of America’s promise.
African-Americans are walking on air, exuberant, happy, proud beyond description. So are the whites, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and others who voted for Barack Obama. So is a world thrilled with seeing the personification of America’s ideals of equality.
Barack Obama’s election is the fitting end to a historic election year that captivated the nation and the world and electrified African-Americans.
From that January 2007 day when Obama started his presidential odyssey, African-Americans watched his campaign, first with curiosity, then interest. This January, when Obama won the first presidential contest, in nearly all-white Iowa, Blacks got into this election like no other.
Over the next two months, the Black community’s loyalties shifted sharply to this son of a Kansas mom and a Kenyan dad raised by grandparents in America’s heartland and its farthest most state.
Obama motivated hundreds of thousands in Indiana to vote, turning the Hoosier state into a color never contemplated — blue!
How monumental is Obama’s Indiana win? Since 1900, Democratic presidents only won Indiana five times — Woodrow Wilson (1912), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1932, 36), Lyndon Johnson (1964) and Obama.
Indiana turned blue as Obama won 15 counties, led by a 106,000 vote landslide in Marion County and 71,000 vote sweep in Lake County. Though Sen. John McCain won more Hoosier counties, Obama won because of the huge margins in Indiana’s biggest counties and surprising margins in many rural counties.
It’s stunning that in many rural and small town places in the state that nurtured the Klu Klux Klan and launched the John Birch Society, Obama got more votes than previous white Democratic presidential candidates.
A photo I saw epitomized Obama’s rural Indiana support. Placed at the intersection of two state highways in a southern Indiana county, a sign said “Rednecks 4 Obama. Even WE’VE had enough.”
The Obama revolution gave local Republicans their worst election drubbing in decades. With the largest voter turnout in city/county history (a record setting 378,000 voters, 55,000 more than 2004) and fueled by 133,258 straight Democratic ballots, local Democrats swept all four countywide offices by margins averaging 74,148 votes. Democrats got 59.8 percent of the votes for House legislative seats, compared to 38.8 percent for Republican candidates.
Combined with Congressman Andre Carson’s 80,000 vote crushing of his GOP opponent, Marion County Republicans face a bleak future. In 2010 they must defend the prosecutor’s office and find credible ways to retake the sheriff and other countywide offices.
Mayor Greg Ballard should see the Obama-fueled sweep as an ominous sign as in 2011 he’ll face an Obama-fired up Black electorate that Ballard’s ignored and been incommunicado with since his election.
Withstanding the Obama wave was Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels who had a landslide of his own crushing Jill Long Thompson statewide by 480,000 votes and by 50,000 in Marion County. Daniels didn’t just win because Long Thompson’s campaign was incompetent. Daniels campaign was brilliant, positive and inclusionary. A campaign that set a new template for GOP candidates (and white Democrats) to emulate in attracting Black votes.
Exit polls say Daniels received as much as 20 percent of the Black vote. Daniels’ ads in Black media were part of the reason. The ads were attractive and evoked positive emotions and feelings. The ad that caught the most attention was a radio ad where Daniels himself began by saying “I’m Mitch Daniels and I want to talk to listeners of WTLC.” The ad was the most direct and fresh appeal I’ve heard a white (or Black) politican make to Blacks through Black media in my years in Indiana. It’s a strategy other candidates and campaigns should emulate.
For Blacks, we feel a personal connection with our new president. We feel we know him. Whether watching him on TV, hearing him on the radio, seeing him in person at a rally, or whether, like me, got to personally meet and talk with him.
During the campaign, I was privileged to speak with Barack Obama four times, twice during the primary and general election. Twice by phone, twice in person.
You saw the two of us talking in Terre Haute in a picture on the Recorder’s front page back in September.
My last interview, by phone, was six days before the election. I felt the confidence of a man who knew he was going to win. But I was melancholy because I knew this’d probably be the last time I’d speak with him. Since presidents don’t talk to local media types like me.
Obama understood and said that while one had to be the president of everyone, if elected he’d make sure his administration reaches out to our community through Black media.
I trust our president will keep his word.
Our new president offered hope and change and changed Indiana and Indianapolis as no president has. Our community now has a president we can truly call one of us.
May God bless him, his family and the United States of America we all love and cherish.
See ‘ya next week.
Amos Brown’s opinions are not necessarily those of the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. You can contact him at (317) 221-0915 or by e-mail at ACBROWN@AOL.COM.
