Harlem Erupts in Celebration as Obama Wins White House

By: Dontré L. Conerly 

Harlemites celebrate

It was a day many thought they’d never see, and so they wanted to remember it forever: where they were when American elected its first black President of the United States. Thousands were standing at the corner of 125th and 7th Avenue, in the shadow of the monument to Harlem’s preeminent political leader, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Under the glow a Jumbotron that gave constant updates and electoral vote tallies, they danced, cheered, and sang each time Senator Obama won a state, and boo-ed any time Senator McCain scored any electoral votes.  

            Organized by Congressman Charlie Rangel, who easily won re-election with 87% of the vote, The Historic Harlem Community Celebration was exactly that: an election-night viewing party and victory celebration. Thousands filled the square in front of the state office building hours before the first polls closed at 7:00pm, anxious to watch the victory of the junior Senator unfold. As the number of viewers swelled throughout out the night, the crowd got more and more excitable. Spontaneous chants of “Yes! We! Can!” reverberated from the crowd, carried to the same cadence as “O! Ba! Ma!” 

The celebration was hosted by Jacques deGraff, a known Harlem preacher who serves on the Board of the 100 Black Men of New York, who kept the crowd revved up with rally calls and encouraging words. “In some maps, this is the intersection of 125^th and 7^th Avenue; but in our hearts, this is the intersection of Martin Luther King and Adam Clayton Powell,” he said, an obvious reference to the qualities of each leader that are carried in Senator Obama. One after one, political leaders graced the stage and extolled the qualities of the man who would become America’s 44^th President, and the country that allowed such a thing to be possible. “Barack Obama is the answer to America’s question,” said Rangel. “We are on track to bring prestige back to America.”             

Rev. Jacque deGraff addresses crowd

 Amongst the string of New York politicians who took the stage, a few celebrities even showed their support. Jeremy Piven, of HBO’s Entourage praised the crowd for its size and comedian D.L. Hughley articulated the emotions that so many had expressed throughout the day. “I never thought I’d see something like this.” Before he left the stage he referred to the Senator as Barack Hussein Obama, making full emphasis of a name that, over the course of the campaign, was used to try and brand Sen. Obama as a Muslim—a claim that did not hold.

Actor Jeremy Piven addresses crowd

 As the numbers rolled in, the energy of the crowd continued to magnify, so much so that cheers and screams rang forth at partial projections that credited Sen. Obama with electoral votes before he even won the state. It reached its crescendo when Sen. Obama crossed the finish line and received the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the Presidency. 

The crowd cheers at victory

 Tears, screams, whoops, and hollers burst forth with abandon; neighbors embraced one another; many in the crown began to jump up and down, and some just cried, immobilized by the disbelief. Sheer pandemonium overtook the crowd, and then came that familiar cadence: “O! Ba! Ma! “O! Ba! Ma! “O! Ba! Ma!” The dreams and prayers of many had been answered with the win and they celebrated as loudly and as hard as they could.

Lynda Chambers, of Harlem, dropped her head and seemed to reflect on the win. She told me that this is the most beneficial thing in her life that she’s ever been a part of, so when she dropper her head, she “was thinking of my children, my family, the economy; the stress that this has caused the world.” She says “our dignity will be restored. We needed a change.”

            Astou Ndao, a Senegalese national now living in Harlem, danced with a troupe of African dancers that entertained the crowd. Clad in traditional African dress, she responded to the beat of the drums with an impressive intensity. “I’m so glad and happy. I cannot explain my happiness,” she said. “I’ve been supporting Obama since November [2007], and this is the win I was expecting. I don’t regret [supporting him].”

 Tears slid from the eyes of Chris Barfield who says this was the greatest vote he’s ever had. The 32-year-old Harlemite exclaimed, “This is the greatest night of my life!”

            But, as much as this was a celebration, it was an important political moment in the history of a country that denied some in the crowd the right the vote, and languished them with discriminatory Jim Crow laws. “There used to be white water fountains and black water fountains,” said former mayor, David Dinkins. “Well, we’re all drinking from the same fountain now!”  

Gov. Paterson and wife, Michelle

           Gov. Paterson closed out the speaker’s list of the celebration, echoing the remarks of the long line of the night’s speakers who counted Sen. Obama’s win as a victory for black America. Standing on a stage with a cast of black politicians, looking into a sea of a mostly-black electorate, he traced the long line of horrific events that blacks have endured to get to this moment and closed out with the most famous line of a speech in history, delivered by a black American who gave everything so that someone like Barack Obama could be called President. “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last!”