“Vote Early” was more than a slogan…

Voters hoped to avoid lines on November 4 by voting on November 1

…to the folks standing in line at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in downtown Cleveland. At noon on Saturday, the line of potential voters stretched for two blocks. Voting hours were supposed to run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. But at 12:45, folks were still taking their places in line.

Cuyahoga Board of Elections director Jane Platten said more than 7,000 voters had come to the office on Friday and Saturday.

Loretta Malcolm, of East Cleveland, said the scene reminded her of South Africa.

“People were waiting for days, for weeks to vote,” she recalled. “They would walk for weeks, and then they would stand in line for days, just so they could get an opportunity to vote. And we have that opportunity and we should take total advantage of it.”

Loretta Malcolm said the queue recalled scenes from South African elections.

In Ohio, early voting started on September 30. It will end on November 3, the day before the election. Officials have promoted early voting as a way to avoid long lines on Election Day proper. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner predicts 80 percent of the state’s voters will cast a ballot, either in person or by mail. In previous years, turnout was around 70 percent.

On Saturday, one woman ran her own campaign for Barack Obama.

Gayle Tunkara, of Cleveland, was asking passers-by to pray. Not just any prayer, but one she said “God had put on my spirit.”

“I typed the prayer up and I’m passing it out, asking everybody to be in agreement with me, and praying for Barack Obama.”

Tunkara’s prayer is quite specific. Not only does she ask for “divine protection as (Obama) continues his quest to the White House,” she rebukes a host of plagues.

Gayle Tunkara hands out her prayer for Barack Obama.

“…We pray, and take authority over hanging chads, miscounted votes, lost ballots, not enough time at polls, miscounted absentee ballot local and/or overseas…distractions of any sort, malfunctioning machines electronic or manual, unnecessary recounts, sickness or disease, favoritism and schemes of state…”

No, there was no prayer for McCain. In fact, the Republicans were conspicuously absent. There were no campaign signs for any Republican candidate.

At all.

It’s time for a roll call

Taken by Steve Rhodes

The delegates at the Democratic Convention ended their roll call when they agreed to nominate Barack Obama as the party’s presidential candidate by acclamation. But they left some unfinished business.

Some names need to be spoken.

In his seminal book on African religion and cosmology, the great scholar John Mbiti explained that the ancestors are not completely dead until their names are forgotten. So I’m taking this moment to call the names of our ancestors on the day that Barack Obama became the first African-American to win a major party nomination.

Call it a libation.

Aaron Henry, Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray Adams, Ed King, and Annie Devine, and other the delegates of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party who insisted that the convention unseat the all-white state delegation at the convention in 1964.
Medgar Evers, the fearless NAACP field secretary who was assassinated in his driveway in front of his family.
Herbert Lee, who was murdered because he chauffeured civil rights workers around Amite County, Mississippi during Freedom Summer, 1964.
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered during Freedom Summer, 1964 for daring to register African Americans.

We will never forget you. You taught us that the race is not given to the swift, but to those who continue. And we vow to run on, and see what the end will be.

Update: Two of my readers have added names of their own to this list.  Therefore, I’m asking others to add to the libation: Call the names of  ancestors – whether in blood, example, or spirit – who should be remembered and honored.