Growing up during the civil rights era in Jacksonville, Fla., Lilly Andrews remembers her community had two parks – one for Blacks and one for whites. As a young girl, Andrews, who was born in the 40s, wanted to ride the merry-go-round at the white park – but she was forbidden from doing so because of her skin color.
Now, decades later, Andrews watches as a Black man comes just steps away from the presidency of the United States. It is something she had always hoped to see.
“I’m a big dreamer,” she said.
For some Black men and women in New York who grew up during the civil rights era, Barack Obama’s historic run for the presidency is a testament to changing times and brings a sense of joy, pride and hope.
“I never thought I’d live to see a Black man in the White House,” said Jesse Mitchell, 51, who was wearing a pin with an image of Obama and Martin Luther King.
“I’ve got an enormous sense of pride,” said Mitchell, a day laborer, who was born and raised in Brooklyn. “Martin Luther King said he had a dream and Barack has fulfilled that dream.”
Some Black Americans in New York said they did not expect Obama, the son of a white woman and a Kenyan man, to get so close to the presidency.
“I thought everybody would knock him down – wouldn’t give him the opportunity,” said Margaret Battle, 67, from Brooklyn. “A lot of people, being Black, don’t have the opportunity, so if anyone is going to get it, I want him to get it.”
Black men and woman who plan to vote for Barack Obama also said their support for the candidate is about much more than skin color. It’s about credentials.
“I never thought I’d say that I’d see the day a Black man – I don’t want to say Black or white – but a man who wants to help everybody would be running for president,” said Oscar Lewis, who was born in the 40s in Montgomery, Ala. “I believe Obama is the type of person that will help anybody.”
Lewis, who owns Oscar’s Afro Shop, a barbershop in the Bronx, said that he thinks many young people, of all races, will vote for Obama, and he is confident that the candidate will win the election next week.
Arthur Trotman, 50, who grew up in Brooklyn also said that he supported Obama mainly because of his qualifications.
“I think he’s a better candidate,” said Trotman. But Trotman acknowledged that, if elected, Barack Obama’s presidency would be a significant feat for a nation that was once segregated.
“It will show a turning point,” he said.
Rasheen Bell, 40, a barber at Who’s First? in the Bronx, shared a similar message.
“It shows that we’re finally making it, that we belong,” said Bell, who added that it was about time a Black man was given the opportunity to do something other than be a mayor or senator.
Bell, who grew up in Brooklyn, said Obama’s candidacy shows his children — he has a 21-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son — that everyone can make something of themselves.
“They’re getting to see that, you know, it is possible for anybody to make it anywhere at anytime. That it’s not just white people that are going to make it some place, we got a chance to do it too.”