At 5:00AM, on a balmy Tuesday morning, November 4th 2008, Jeanne, my companion, and I awoke. Thus began an 18 hour day working at the local polling places in Barrington, RI. I was appointed clerk for Precinct 105 and Jeanne a supervisor at the Town Hall.
The clerk is responsible for managing the voting supplies, resolving registration issues, helping voter to understand how to fill out various forms, and certifying voter affirmations and provisional ballots.
At 10:00 PM, the end of the day, and 1348 voters later, I delivered the seal ballot boxes and document bag to Town Hall. Mission accomplished.
It was a blustery November morning in 1960. The last of the leaves clung to the elms on College Green in front of Sayles Hall on the Brown University campus. At noon of Tuesday the 10th, I, along with 500 other sophomores, hiked into the hall to attend our bi-monthly, obligatory “Chapel.”, Chapel was the one of the last vestiges of Brown’s Baptist religious origins. It was a formal event, requiring a jacket and tie, mandatory for all freshman and sophomores.
Seating was alphabetical. We met here on my first day at Brown. We were told to look to our left and our right. “Next year one of your neighbors will no longer be there,” the Dean announced. This was my third semester. I almost became one of the missing. But I had survived and moved up 10 places. Now I sat just right of center in the front row.
As the campus bell tolled noon, I looked up at the pulpit/lectern. The Chaplain stood up and offered a invocation. The Dean followed, said some words I don’t remember and then introduced a tall, well dressed black man, a preacher from Georgia. He was to be today’s speaker. I vividly remember the large gold watch that he wore on his left wrist. Its crystal face caught an occasional beam of sunlight and flashed in my eyes. He looked out of place in this Ivy League bastion.
Sitting there, I worried about my German dialogue due in an hour and a half. I had no idea who or why the Preacher was there. Then he began his speech,” Facing the Challenges of the New Age." This is how I met the Reverent Martin Luther King, Jr.
By the end of the speech I found myself reborn from a nervous 19 year class conscious white kid who felt out of place in this world of rich elite WASPs. I felt empowered. I learned that I could make a difference. The feeling was reinforced two months later, when on Friday, January 20, 1961 the newly elected President John F Kenney proclaimed:
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. On that day he was speaking to my generation.
I spent the summer of 1963 raising the money for my final year at Brown. On August 28, 1963, I watch the March on Washington from a distance when King said, in his “I have Dream Speech,
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. His speech re-enforced the sense of empowerment I felt on that day in November, 1960.
Three months later, on Friday, November 22, 1963, the nation was shocked when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. As the word spread, I recalled Kennedy’s generational challenge
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
8 months later, after graduation, I joined the Peace Corps. In September 1964, I left to spend 2 years in Peru. During that time, I followed the black Preacher’s career on Voice of America, as he and others pushed for the Voting Rights Amendment. When President Johnson signed the Act on August 6, 1965, I was so proud of my country and generation.
When I returned in July, 1966, America had changed. It was the Age of Aquarius. In New York City, the Love generation was holding a “be-in” in Washington Square. And, we were at war. I entered graduate school at the University of Arizona that fall.
As the Viet Nam war dragged on, the love turned to hate. Civil rights gave way to the anti-war movement. Yet the dream remained.
On April 4, 1968, I, along with millions of others, was shocked and angered. Rev. King was fatally shot at 6:01 p.m. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN. Then, on June 6, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles right after winning the California Democrat primary.
Forces opposed to the American dream were killing off our leaders. I remembered JFK’s warning.
All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days; nor in the life of this Administration; nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin
Still in graduate school, I decided that instead of a safe academic career, I would dedicate and apply my talents and commit to the mission for the long term.
Forty eight years later When I arrived home, Jeanne was there. She had just returned from the Town Hall voting site. We were exhausted, but not so tired that we could not share our impressions of the day. Big crowds, of pleasant and happy voters; a feeling that something new was about to happen; and most of all new young enthusiastic voters voting.
We turned on the TV to watch the early returns. But it was a little too early and we were too tired to stay up any later. The next morning we awoke to the headline in the New York Times
OBAMA Racial Barrier Falls in Decisive Victory In the fateful words of Martin Luther King on the night before his assassination:
…
I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. In my mind’s eye, I thought saw a flash off his gold wristwatch when President Elect Barak Obama noted in his acceptance speech:
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.
I feel my generation’s mission has been accomplished. I am proud to have witnessed it and played a small role in it. Yet there is much more to do.
I pray that this new generation will heed Obama’s words and enlist for the long term. The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a people will get there.
Our "lively experiment" has run its course economically. It is time for a new Green House Compact Summit.
Our business model, as a state, is built on the haydays of manufacturing and the labor movement with cheap labor and water power. Today this is no longer the reality.
Our defense industries were build on the WWII and the Cold War need for (submarines and ship building). These have changed to meet new conditions that require higher levels of skills and not just brut labor and craftmanship.
Our fishing industry was built on the abundance of fish stocks -- today they aren't there. Environmental and susrtainability issues are drawing in the net that fishermen find themselves in.
We need this debate, but we need to also move beyond it to find a new business model for the state built upon our true strengths and cutting our loses now, no matter how painful. It is only fair to the next generation.
The current adult generation(s) created this problem. Let's take responsibility and clean it up. It is in all our interests.