Just got off the phone with my dad, who's in his late fifties. He and my mom went out canvassing in Missouri today -- they have *never* volunteered for a campaign before and my mother is painfully shy. But she knocked on strangers' doors and talked to them! I have never seen her on fire like this!
They knocked on 72 doors in a small Missouri town in the middle of nowhere. They identified many Obama supporters and had productive conversations with undecided voters. They recruited six volunteers for GOTV, some of whom were already at the campaign headquarters when my parents finished up for the day! They are so proud of themselves, and I love to think about the thousands of people like them -- people who have been inspired by this campaign to go beyond anything they ever thought they'd do.
And Dad reminded me that when he was a kid, segregation was the norm. He said what he remembers most is that black kids weren't allowed in the public swimming pool. Part of his hometown in southwest Missouri was called "Nigger Town," and white people didn't go there. Dad said no one even thought about "the n word" being derogatory -- niggers were niggers, that's just the way it was.
Just now he said to me, "To think that in my lifetime it's gone from THAT, from those horrible ingrained attitudes, to this, to being this close to electing a black president -- it just takes your breath away."
Indeed it does.
