Decked head-to-toe in any Barack Obama apparel they could lay their hands on, hundreds of Harlem locals crowded into the Harlem State Office Building Plaza Tuesday night in the hope of celebrating the election of the United States’ first black president.
The pro-Obama crowd that gathered around the large television screen was symbolic of the strong forces in Harlem that have vied for Obama over the past few months. A divide in party preference exists in the area—and some local politicians even endorsed Obama’s major opponent in the primaries, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). But State Senator Bill Perkins (D-Harlem) expressed his support for Obama after the young Illinois senator won the Iowa primary in January.
Emotions ran high Tuesday evening, with many optimistic about their candidate’s political fortunes.
Early in the celebration, one woman passed around invitations to an Obama victory party. Participants donned jewelry-encrusted hats with Obama’s name on them and shirts sporting his usual logos of change and progress. Even those powerless to vote, like children and even some canines, sported their pro-Obama gear proudly.
Peter Boyce, a Caribbean native, thought Virginia to be the pivotal state for election, but had high hopes about Obama’s political prospects. A father of four biracial children, Boyce believed Obama to be an excellent candidate because he was emblematic “neither of white America nor black America, but the United States of America, as he is fond of saying.”
The crowd gave a raucous cheer and raised fists and posters when Iowa was claimed by the Democrats, but they erupted even more loudly when the larger state, Ohio, showed up blue on the big screen.
But as the night dragged on, many showed signs of anticipation and restlessness. When staunchly conservative states like Arkansas appeared red onscreen, participants muttered unhappily to themselves despite longtime predictions for those results.
Even the appearance of Giuliani onscreen or the switching of the channel to Fox News warranted a chorus of boos from the participants. One woman in the crowd yelled out, “put anyone else on—I’d rather see Tom and Jerry than this.”
The nonetheless buoyant Harlem crowd was not to be disappointed. When Obama was declared the winner of the general election, the crowd went wild. “People were jumping to the sky,” Boyce said after the event. “It was beautiful.”
“The banking situation is a mixed blessing—for Obama, not for us,” Shirley Hayman, a New York native, said. Like many attendees, Hayman believed that while the crisis had boosted Obama’s fortunes, the now-president-elect didn’t have it “in the bag.”
Politics weren’t the sole focus of the evening. Appearances were made by Jeremy Piven, the star of Entourage, the up-and-coming rapper Mr. Cheeks, and a performance was given by acoustic guitarist Reggie Williams, sparking spontaneous dancing from many crowd members.
“Nothing has even come close since the 1968 elections, all the drama that happened in Chicago,” Coletha Woodson said.
“But this is history, baby.”
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