Barbara Nelson, Gleaner Writer
As the rain begins to fall, Democratic presidential candidate Sen Barack Obama, D-Ill., waves to supporters at an outdoor rally in Cleveland, Ohio, Sunday, November 2. - AP
It was a cold Monday night, November 3, 2008. Here I was at a few minutes after ten o'clock, perched at the top of a row of bleachers next to a football field that overlooked the fairgrounds of Manassas in Virginia, USA. I was just one person in a sea of some 10,000 people who had come to see and hear Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois, the first African-American in the history of the United States of America who had completed a run for the presidency of what is called the most powerful nation on the face of the earth.
Suddenly in the distance, the flashing blue lights of his motorcade pierced the blackness of the night. In a few more minutes the tall, lanky man had mounted the stage where the stars and stripes of the US flag stood beside the slogan of his candidacy: Change We Can Believe In.
A roar went up from the sea of supporters: "O-bam-a! O-bam-a!"
"This is our last rally before the elections tomorrow," Obama shouted. "After decades of broken politics in Washington, eight years of failed policies from George Bush, we are less than one day away from bringing about change in America."
A young man tried to push his way into the limited space beside me. Lifting a camera on a tripod he focused on the platform far away in the distance. As I eased down to give him space, I noticed a young woman attempting to move in beside him. I smiled at her. "News Channel 2 Panama, periodista," she explained. "Gleaner, Jamaica," I replied. "Great!" she replied, above the noise.
"I'm all fired up!" Barack Obama said. "I'm fired up and ready to go!"
The crowd erupted in yet another roar: "Ob-a-ma! Ob-am-a!"
Grinding campaign
He was ending a grinding election campaign 632 days of candidacy. Just a few hours before he had received the news that his 86-year-old maternal grandmother Madelyn Dunham - 'Toot' as he called her, had passed on. Obama had paused for a few days before during his campaign to visit with her in Hawaii to make sure he spoke to her before she died. He was not sure she would live until election day - and she did not. She was "a quiet hero the last of the adults who had moulded his life as a boy in Hawaii.
Yet although his emotions must have been rubbed raw by the news of her death." It's hard to talk about it," he said to a crowd earlier in the day, he addressed the massive crowd in Manassas with power, and grace enthusiasm. He reminded them that they should remain focused and make sure that each and every one voted.
I saw a most interesting crowd gathered on Monday night under a cloudy, starless sky - some old white ladies leaning on canes and walkers, young, middle-age and older African Americans, tiny babies swaddled in blankets and tucked into strollers, strong working class white American men and women, a group Indian Sikhs in their turbans, a few Muslim women, Latinos in T-shirts emblazoned with Latinos for Obama.
And they all shouted and danced and cheered as the man who has espoused change as his mantra encouraged them to go that final mile with him and vote.
Three-mile walk
A middle-age white woman beside me smiled and asked "Did you have to walk to get here?" "Yes," I replied. "I had to park my car and walk almost three miles!" she said. "Me too."
He had come and they had seen him. They had heard him speak and so, after a while, people at the edge of the crowd began to drift away. The rally was winding down. It would be a long walk back to the area where the police had cordoned off places to park.
Music blared from the loud speakers. Stevie Wonder's mega-hit pierced the night "Signed, sealed and delivered I'm yours!" The crowd moved to the beat of the music.
The event was over. The long trek back to the parking area began. Police directed traffic. Every few minutes someone shouted "Fired up!" And the others replied in unison: "Ready to go!" The people were happy, excited, uplifted.
