Worth the Wait

At Reunion Arena I waited in line for three hours behind thousands of people to hear him speak to his Dallas supporters. Schools made a field trip out of the event. Moms called in sick to work to attend. Children ran around excited about the day when they would be old enough to vote.

Fort Worth was a much longer wait. I decided to spend my day staked out in front of the Convention Center. There were about 15 or so other avid supporters already there. The chilly Thursday morning had warmed up by the time the doors opened at the Forth Worth Convention Center six hours later. But my wait was not yet over. For two more hours I stood on the floor just ten feet away from the stage where he was going to address the 20,000 people who showed up to support him. My feet hurt and my body was worn out, but I kept waiting.

Although the polls closed at 7:00 on March 4th, I stayed for five more hours and witnessed each and every caucus vote be verified and counted to determine the delegate distribution for Precinct 1407. It was nearly midnight when the delegates were elected to go on to the District Convention on March 29th.

Hundreds of us swamped the narrow, front corridor of Thomas Jefferson High School. We patiently waited our turn to sign-in as elected delegates for our respective precincts. What took one hour the year before took nearly six hours this year. It was hot and most of us had plenty of other things to do on a Saturday afternoon, but we waited.

We were young, middle-aged and senior citizens. We were Black, White, Asian, Latin, and Middle-Eastern. We were students, teachers, preachers, retirees, fight attendants, and veterinarians. We were hungry. We were tired. We were determined. We were hopeful. And together we waited.

We waited because finally we were being counted. We waited because finally someone was speaking on our behalf. We waited because finally we were willing to fight for what we deserved, instead of settling for what we could get. We waited because the feeling of believing in something again ignited an inner hope in us that was extinguished a long time ago. We waited because if not now, then when?

For all these reasons and more, we waited for Barack Obama.

But, alas, our wait is finally over.

Twenty-two hours of standing in line and several months of roller-coaster primary results later and finally Barack Obama has succeeded in winning the majority of delegates in the Democratic primaries.

Ask any of us, and we'd all say the same thing: it was well worth the wait.