"He Was Talking About Me"

by digby

I think Joan Walsh has written the best first person account of today's events that I've read. I've heard that it was pretty chaotic getting in and that a lot of people had trouble negotiating the crowds. But I've also heard that the overwhelming feeling all over town was one of racial reconciliation, which is a truly great thing.

Joan's observations about that were particularly poignant:

I reunited with my daughter at the packed Le Bon Cafe, on 2nd and Pennsylvania, which had wireless service and the nearest coffee to the Capitol. There was a line out the door; happy people were sharing crowded tables (in the two hours I was there, we met people from Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles and Madison, Wis.). When we got inside, Dr. Arnett Girardeau, 80 years old in a blue Obama cap, kindly invited us to share his table. I asked him what he thought about the day's events. "I never thought I'd live to see it," he said. "You know, when Barack talked about his father not being served in some restaurants here 60 years ago, he was talking about me," Girardeau said. "I was a freshman at Howard University in 1947, and there were still separate accommodations here."

Girardeau became a dentist and lived in Washington until 1962, when the civil rights movement called him home to Jacksonville, Fla. "We were still having Klan riots then," he told me. He became the head of the local NAACP, then a state senator from 1982 to 1992. When Obama declared his candidacy, "I didn't think he had a snowball's chance in hell," Girardeau confessed. He was leaning toward Hillary Clinton until Iowa. "When white people in Iowa voted for him, I thought, I've got to be with him. I felt bad for Hillary, and I wanted her to be his vice president -- when he picked Biden, I told my wife, 'He just lost the election; he'd have won with Hillary.'" Girardeau chuckles. "What do I know?"

"I'm just so happy I lived to see it. I'm more proud of the American people than anything." Then Girardeau said goodbye, and made his way back to his hotel. He'd enjoyed the Florida State Ball on Monday night, but he had no plans for Tuesday. "I saw what I came to see."

That man was born in 1928.

In Alabama that year:

1928: Miscegenation [State Code]
Miscegenation declared a felony.

1928: Race classification [State Code]
Classified all persons with any Negro blood as colored.

1928: Public accommodations [State Code]
Forbid the use by members of either race of toilet facilities in hotels and restaurants which were furnished to accommodate persons of the other race.

In Georgia that year:

1928: Miscegenation [State Code]
Miscegenation declared a felony. Also unlawful for Caucasian persons to marry Asians or Malays.

1928: Race classification [Statute]
Required all persons to fill out voter registration forms with information concerning their racial ancestry. If there was any admixture of Negro blood in the veins of any registrant, person would be considered a person of color.

In fact, throughout the South, Jim Crow was still being codified into law when that man was born. Imagine how incredibly meaningful it is to people of his age that we have an African American president.

Read Joan's whole post. It will make you feel good.