I was all set to tell you the untold story of California and how it helped to elect Barack Obama. But today I want to reflect on a moment from a couple of weeks ago.

Two weeks ago I attended and helped facilitate an early vote and phone bank rally in Norwalk, California for Obama. After setting folks up, teach them and training them on what they need to say on the phones in order to convince others to vote for Senator Obama, I seized my chance to get in line and cast my vote for The Next President of the United States of America.

Let's jump back in time a little bit. I haven't been with this campaign very long. I've been a part of the Volunteer Staff of the Obama Campaign at the California Headquarters in Los Angeles since it opened the day after Sarah Palin spoke at the Republican National Convention. That's only about 3 months. There are people that have been on the campaign trail for Obama for the past 20 months. There are folks in California who been singing the praises as Barack before he won lily white Iowa and let blacks black folks know "Yes, He Could!"

This was my first experience working on a political campaign or volunteering my time for a cause larger than my own personal aspirations. In the past, if you wanted to get the use of my Northwestern University intellect and my ability to work with and inspire others then you had to pay for it. I grew up poor and I've been determined my entire life to try to fight the headwinds of generational poverty (albeit, quite unsuccessfully). For months, like many of you, I sat and watched the Primaries and worked my jobs and lived my life. Like many of you, I started to hear about different blogs and different places to get the news that you don't get on ABC, CBS, NBC, or CNN.

During this time, I did something that I thought I wouldn't do until I became rich and had achieved my personal goals, I donated money to a political campaign. Now truly, the donation wasn't much, but at the same time I didn't have much. At one point when I was afraid of Obama Losing, I had 17 Dollars in the bank and Obama got 10 of it. I sat in front of the computer, writing blogs, reading the polls, and fretting. I was engaged but not involved. Then there was the Email to change my life. Apply for Camp Obama and work in a battleground state.

Six Weeks later I'm in a room with 200 other Obama Supporters of every age, ethnic background, wealth class, and self perceived status. It was a beautiful collage of Americana. We shared our stories and got down the the nitty gritty of what made us human and what made us support this man. We laughed, we cried, we bonded. We became a unit, an army of folks united for a cause higher than ourselves. The kool-aid flowed and we didn't sip from a chalice, we gulped from a barrel until our bellies were distended.

Flash forward weeks later and I'm on a great team of folks guiding the chaos in one of the main offices of America's largest volunteer based army. I don't want to overstate my part in this. I was but a washer or a cog in the gigantic wheel of Obama. As of right now, I still don't have a title to put on my resume. All I did was give a few high fives, spoke some encouraging words, and filled in what needed to be filled in.

There were folks like Mary Jane, Erin, Aaron, Brent, Jackie, Hillary, Akili, Michelle, Meshel, Andy, Ashley, Aimee, Amy, Robin, Beverly, Dan, Mitchell, Joe, Laura, Julie, John, Sarah, Rick, Hayden, Rita, Rose, Elizabeth, Alek, Kelli, Haze, Cigi, Hope, Debbie, Joyce, Cheri, Marianne, April, Kirstin, Victoria, plus many many others that worked Harder, did more, and played far larger parts than I did in the victory we all celebrate (Not to forget Donald F'ing Sutherland making phone calls for 9 hours straight). They were the ones burning the midnight oil finding ways to cultivate new volunteers, crunching numbers, entering data, worrying about making their deadlines and fretting about contacts and washed hands. Many of them were parts of the Primary Force that got us to the General Election. Many of them are the REASONS why I get to write this entry today. If not for their inspiration and aspiration, their courage to do more in the face of inevitability, we wouldn't have a President Elect Obama. I'm grateful to all of them. I'm also getting off course.

[Back to Voting.]

I'm in line to early vote for the guy I've abandoned all of my life responsibilities to help elect. I literally dance to the woman who's job it is to issue my ballot, which brings a smile to her face. "Hmm, I know who you're voting for." We both smile.

I'm in the booth, Got my book, got my ballot. I look down see The Democratic Party Barack Obama, and Joe Biden #8. BOOM! That's when it hit me. Thoughts, Emotions, Deep Seated Awakenings. He's the new President.

[Here comes another lengthy aside]

If any of you read a previous blog entry that I posted (or heard my story of self) you know where I started out in life (If you haven't you can read it here). As a result of my beginnings, one of the things that I carry around in my wallet is my goal. "I want to be the kind of man, have the kind of success, and live the kind of life that will serve as example for Minority youths to aspire to become whatever they chose to be." The beautiful thing is that Barack Obama is already a better template for the children than I could ever be. Helping him to become president will more than fulfill that goal even if I am not the example myself.

[Back to Present]

I'm out of the voting booth and I want to share this moment with someone who I loved that I thought that would understand the significance and power of voting for a good, hardworking, moral, intellectual who happens to also be black. So I call my grandmother. As a kid she talked about the great speeches of Dr. King and the importance of getting an education. I was sure that I would reach out and we would share a hug through the phone. Mind you, at this point my voice is hoarse from the cold I'm catching and from teaching packs of people how to speak to Nevadans. Instead of having that moment of mutual admiration and joy it turned into an argument about how I'm not getting paid, and my health and blah, blah, blah. We ended the conversation with me railing on about dedicating my life for a cause greater than self and her wondering aloud who was this person she was speaking to on the phone.

After reaching out to share a moment, to magnify love, I ended up with a kidney punch. Surly would probably be the best way to describe the outer manifestation of my inner residual resentment. But that melted later that afternoon.

There was an Older Black Woman, about the same age as my Older Black Grandmother, sitting in the grass cranking out calls. I'm going around yelling to the callers to wrap it up we're about to end the phone bank and rally. She was three sheets into her five sheet set and with the look of serious business in her eyes, told me I would get the calls sheets when she had made all of the calls. I and a few people with the campaign wrapped up everything else and waited for her to call through the list.

This Older Black Woman, Summer, if I'm being proper, I'd call her Miss Summer, drove 100 miles to come down, cast her vote and was determined to get through all five sheets we handed to her. We hugged and she thanked us profusely for giver her something to do to help the campaign besides just donating as she had been doing. Then she said something that brought it all together: "This is what I marched for."

I cried that day, like I did last night (election night). The top soil has been stripped away and I've seen my roots. This is my, excuse me, this is OUR march. My grandmother can tell you all about Dr. Kings Speeches, she tells the story of Emmett Till (the 14 year old kid that was beaten and killed for whistling at a white woman), she told us about Fred Hampton (who has a swimming pool named after him in our home town). But what she has never shared is HER experiences in the struggle. Thats because she doesn't have any. She cringes when she watches old news footage of the marchers forging on in the face of fire hoses and dogs, she turns the television whenever Alex Haley's Roots comes on, she hates Danny Glover because "He played that role too good" in The Color Purple. She rails on and on about how white people used to do us, but she never lifted a finger to change it. She resentfully sat her ass in the back of the bus dreaming for someone else to make it possible so she could sit in the front.

That is the beauty of Miss Summer. She Marched.  She sat at lunch counters. She made history instead of just living it. If we would have chatted longer I'm sure that she would have shown me the scars that it took to make it possible for me to work with this group of people to elect this Black Man as president.

This is our March. These are our sacrifices. Lost sleep, bad health, negative checking account, creditor calls, no time to write, a complete stop of my career progress, and near eviction from my building for not completely holding up my end of the bargain as the apartment manager. No dog bites, not cracked skulls, no internal bleeding. I did get called Nigger, a couple times on the phone but I've heard worse than that on the average Rap CD.

These are the LEAST possible things that I could do. The greatness of Obama is that he could inspire a guy like me who comes from a place where you don't risk your neck and get me to put my neck squarely on the chopping block. Let's be honest, I wasn't risking my life as though who came before me had. I risked temporary comforts. The greatness of Obama is MILLIONS of people risked the same comforts. We watched our spouses raise their children, we gave up great jobs in a time of joblessness, we ate doughnuts and pizza shaving years of our lives off. He was the only one who risked his life. He did that for us. We didn't have to take the hits. We didn't have to risk all to score the winning touchdown. All he asked is that we each work together and move the football an inch closer to the goal line to make it easier for him.

That was our march. That was our vote counting. The day I voted is the day I realized that I don't have to be where I came from. I don't have to be the the grandson of my grandmother. I became a part of a movement. We live in a far better America Today than we did yesterday. I helped MAKE history instead of sitting idly by during it.