It is 10 PM Minnesota time and the networks have just called the election for Obama. About 30 seconds after the news hit the TV my younger duaghter called with the news, too. That demonstrates how this election has changed how people feel about participating in government. During the last election she was taking an African-American History class. Her professor felt so strongly about students voting that he told them he would excuse a quiz if they could produce the "I voted" sticker. She didn't even vote under those circumstances. This time she was even buying me campaign T-shirts.
Recently her children have either been misbehaving or not studying well for school and they lost their TV privileges. I called her this evening saying I thought the privilege should be restored for this evening so they could participate in history. I remember exactly where I was when watching people walk on the moon for the first time, and I thought they needed to start building such a history for themselves. The kids did get to see this change in our country.
For those of you in Europe perhaps you didn't see the huge collection of people in Grant Park in Chicago -- 500,000 perhaps. Tonight I saw a woman with tears of joy running down her cheeks. I can remember seeing the police beat up people in the same park during the 1968 convention in Chicago.
For those of you elsewhere, you may also not have seen McCain say it is good that our country has set aside bigotry -- that he could remember when African-Americans were not eligible to be guests in the White House.
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