The World Is Changed

The world is changed.

I write tonight from the Old Dominion, not far from what was the capital of the Confederacy. I write tonight from a changed Virginia.

As Ohio was called, I kissed my daughter good night last night and whispered to her that Barack Obama would be our next president. Then I wept briefly. Then I composed myself and watched history unfold.

I woke up early this morning with little sleep. I woke up restless and then I broke down crying. The world is changed.

Last night Barack Obama said that this election was not about him. It was about us. He had not asked America to elect him because he was an African American. And indeed America did not elect him because he was an African American. America’s challenge was to elect a man not a color. America collectively and resoundingly declared yesterday that the content of Barack Obama’s character was worthy of our vote. We wanted him to lead us. In doing so, America looked beyond color or hue and elected its first African American president.

The world is changed.

More than three decades ago my father voted in an election that led to the birth of a nation. That vote and the collective wish of a people to govern themselves was met with a nine month long genocide that took three million souls. Yet, the people prevailed. The vote counted and a democracy was born.

Throughout the nine months of genocide my parents kept me safe. I lived when many others did not. And on the day that the guns fell silent, my father took me to stand with a million people to bear witness to the signing of a document that gave birth to a democracy.

I learned as a child the price of freedom and the value of a vote. It can change the world.

I took my 8 year old daughter to the polls with me yesterday. I wanted her to bear witness to the vote I cast for Barack Obama, to bear witness to the power of democracy – that with the filling in of a circle next to a name, or the push of a button on a screen, we in America change the world. I wanted to give her what my father gave to me 37 years ago.

So, this morning I wept. I wept for my mom and I wept for my dad. I wept for the three million that gave their lives because they voted their will. I wept with my friends – Americans of all hues and colors. I wept because America is beginning to be truer to the opening words of its founding document. And I wept for my daughter because an uncertain future is suddenly less menacing.

The world is changed.