Today, at the end of a forty-minute faculty meeting after school--one most teachers complained about (much moreso than usual) because they wanted to be able to go vote (as many of our teachers live thirty miles or more away from the school)--two staff members (Sue Stanford and Peggy Snow) gave a power-point presentation on the Pentagon Memorial held two months ago in honor of American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon seven years ago, killing the fifty-nine passengers aboard (as well as 125 military on the ground). One of those fifty-nine passengers aboard Flight 77 was Sue's brother, Joe. Prior to the power-point presentation, Sue recalled for us what she was doing that day seven years ago. She had seen the news coverage that day, she said, but it didn't seem to really get to her, because she was safe in small-town Mississippi, where catastrophies of that sort just didn't happen. She went outside that afternoon and walked her dog, and when she came back into her house, her (other) brother called and asked her if she'd been watching the news. She said she had. Had she seen the news about the plane crashing into the Pentagon? She had. Her brother then informed her that their brother Joe--who, working for National Geographic, was taking some students and some teachers on a field trip--was on that flight.
Sue talked for a few minutes more, introduced the presentation, and then we all watched: slides of the crash, the smoke, the thin metal strips with the terrazo finish overlooking a small pool of water (186 of them), the inscripted names (186 of them), the school children who raised $20,000 so they could attend the memorial, the one-thousand flags on display, the pictures of the deceased, and a few pictures of Sue. When the presentation ended, everyone sat silently until our principal, several seconds later, thanked Sue and Peggy for their presentation, and he then dismissed us. No one grumbled about the length of the meeting or about the fact that we had one at all. I didn't hear much chatter at all, at least nowhere near as much as I usually do after a faculty meeting. I was moved, and I think many others were as well; it seemed to show on their faces.
Later tonight, after discussing politics with my wife (and recouting for her the political ideas my students shared with me today), ABC news announced Barack Obama's presidency. The TV screen showed live footage from Grant Park in Chicago and from Times Square in NYC; the crowds were jubilant to a person, many in tears. My wife told me that the scenes seemed funny to her, surreal, because--though she understood the reason for their excitment--she didn't seem to share their unbridled joy and enthusiasm. I told her that I didn't either, and I proffered a reason why: neither of us has been ardent supporters of the Obama campaign from the get-go (or either from the DNC)--we weren't fans (in fact, we both admired different apsects of both candidate's characters and policies). I compared this disconnect to watching the Super Bowl without really being a true fan of either team. One could enjoy the contest and feel great about the winning team and its fans, but the energizing spirit of victory just isn't internally there (of course, I made this comparison in my mind--after we'd talked about it--right before I started typing, but, hey, what can you do?). We started wondering aloud why we didn't feel it like we thought we should, but then Obama started making his acceptance speech.
We both listened silently (for the most part), and I--and I think my wife--admired both his speech and his speaking, and then he began talking about the 106-year-old lady from Atlanta who cast her first ballot (ever) today. Obama detailed the history that she's seen, the country's advances and changes that she's witnessed as well as the racist and prejudicial treatment she's experienced as both a woman and a person of color. It was during this portion of Obama's acceptance speech that it hit me. I began feeling the tides and waves of history wash over me, slowly, and a song started ruminating through my head:
I began to understand; I looked at this election, this country and its troubled past, from a different perspective, from the perspective of a person of color who lived through those times, and I began to get it. The result of this election is a culmination of the rights granted to all men in the Constitution, rights fought for by Lincoln, and JFK and RFK and LBJ and MLK; at the same time, it's much more than that: it's the promise of a chance to have a better America. So many people voted in this election that had never voted before because--as McCain stated in his concession--they believed they could make a difference; that they could help make a better, stronger, more stable, more compassionate America; that we--as a people--could take from the ashes and the smoke and the ruins and the devestation (each in all its literal and metaphorical forms) and build a brighter place for ourselves and our posterity.
As President-Elect Obama finished his speech, the pundits started to speak, but in the background, I heard Springsteen singing the title track from his stately 2002 album The Rising. Springsteen recorded this anthemic yet folksy song (the combination of those two elements a feat that maybe only Woody Guthrie and Sam Cooke and Paul Robeson and John Lennon could pull off as well as the Boss does here) in the aftermath of the catastrophies of 9/11. This song focuses on the event itself--the alarm, the blood, the death, the fear, the paranoia--and a calling for hope and brotherhood, for a unification of American spirit, for patriotism grounded in compassion, all bound by the love for one another and the dream of brighter days. Tonight, election night, the song still works, and it fits perfectly the theme of Obama's (and McCain's) campaign: We Shall Overcome. Yes We Can.
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