Jesse's Tears

Darling Man and I watched much of the coverage of Election Night on several channels. I always feel like network coverage begins too early. There's lot of guessing based on very little return how things will turn out early in the evening. Then around 9pm, things begin to pick up as real results begin to come in and numbers are tallied.

Then we can watch the states turn red or blue and the electoral votes add up.

Darling Man turned in around 9:30. His early rising made staying up late nearly impossible. He tried. I went to the computer room and worked on my novel, keeping half an eye on the TV but soon got involved in my story. I'm not sure how much time went by, but eventually I had to stop and grope for the next set of words and I looked at the TV.

A tight crowd shot was on, with Jesse Jackson standing slightly behind some other people. And as I noticed the numbers at the bottom of the screen telling me that Barak Obama had won the presidency, I also noticed the tears streaming down Jesse's face.

I'm sure he thought this day would never come. That a black man or any man of color would be elected to the highest office in the land. His own bids for that job met with dismal failure and in his heart of hearts, probably thought that it would never come to pass that a black man would be sitting behind the desk in the Oval office. Not in his lifetime anyway.

Tonight, we all saw history being made, but nowhere was it more evident than on Jesse Jackson's face.