Jack Ross writes from Brooklyn:
I spent election night at my regular club, a folk oriented place in Red Hook, owned by a couple who knew Barack and Michelle in Chicago (the lady of the couple worked for the organization at the center of the Bill Ayers
controversy!). I have been blessed and privileged to have spent
election night there after watching the nomination speech with the
great Jewish veteran of the civil rights movement, Rachelle Horowitz.
A
few old friends were there, including one I hadn't seen in months, Lily
Shachtman, great-granddaughter of The Devil himself. Most moving was
getting to know an older black gentleman from the neighborhood who grew
up in Lynchburg, VA,
who could remember a moment when he thought he was about to see his
father shot for not giving due deference to a white man. The raw
emotion in the room, which was visible in the crowds on TV, and the
nature of the crowds themselves, was overwhelming.
I spoke to my
best friend Devin, who gave me an extraordinary account of the scene at
Brown – 1000 people on the main green, a huge drum circle, and nude
dancing. Such savage lefty celebration of the last decade's vintage
was at least equally telling as any of the abysmal third party returns that the day of what Ron Radosh called "the leftover left" is long gone.
After
Obama's victory speech we had an old fashioned folkie hoedown with
banjo and fiddle band, dancing, the works until 1 in the morning. It
felt as though I was actually inside the dream of an old Stalinist
folkie about what The Great Day would look like, and the horror that
seeing it would fill any old school anti-Communists who are still
around. It was creepy, and the image of the wicked Doris Kearns Goodwin on the big screen didn't help, but it was quite the hootenanny still.
I was taken home by an old school New York
cabbie with whom I talked about the state of the country, he
passionately said Bush would be the most reviled president in history
but thought both Obama
and McCain were the two most pathetic candidates he had ever seen. I
told him I didn't blame him, and we talked about the extraordinary
nature of the support for Obama as we passed by cheering throngs in
Park Slope – PARK SLOPE!!!!! This kind of celebrating in the streets
over an election victory seems unheard of to me in living memory in
this country, probably nothing like it on American soil since Al Smith
was first elected Governor of New York 90 years ago.
When I got home I had a long chat with my friend Richard in California
until suddenly at 2 in the morning there was still street celebrating
to be had in overwhelmingly black Flatbush – a marching band came up Ocean Avenue at 2am!!! I went out and joined the reverie for a bit before coming back inside.
Just
thought you'd all enjoy my account of an extraordinary and historic
evening, a great occasion. Yes We Can, and may God help us all.
