Because we will be returning from China on election day (we will be watching returns in a hotel in San Francisco) we went yesterday and voted absentee at the Clark County courthouse. We had to hurry because they were scheduled to close at 4:00. We made it in by the deadline, completed the paperwork and the very kind worker from the Clerk's office led us to a small room where the voting machines were set up.
She had to do some set up on the machine to make sure our vote was attributed to our precinct. While she was getting things set up I noticed that this was the same room that stored the marriage records for the county. The marriage records are recorded in books that are labeled with dates back to 1793. Standing there looking at these records we also noted that the older ones are also labeled "white" and "colored". This is a part of history that I obviously don't like, but it is what it is.
When I stepped into the voting booth I pushed the button to select a straight democratic ticket. Before I pushed the "Vote" button I stood there for a moment and checked to make sure that I was good with all of the choices. My eyes fell on Barack Obama's name and tears welled up in my eyes. The significance of voting for this man who I feel is (without any doubt whatsoever) America's best hope for the future while standing in a room where marriage records were divided into "white" and "colored" was overwhelming. I stood there savoring the moment, collected myself and pushed "Vote". A very proud moment in my life.
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- Mary Molinaro
- Clark County, KY, United States
- Follow me @marymolinaro on Twitter
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On building the capacity to find rest.17 hours ago
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IAG, we hardly knew ye!14 years ago
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Blogs I write on
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Skinner's Dental Project - The following article on Partners members Ruthi and Rankin Skinner appeared in *Perspectives*, a quarterly magazine published by The University of Kentu...12 years ago
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New Collections Coming Soon! - While we wait for the new Kentuckiana Digital Library to display Kentucky's historic newspapers, we continue digitizing new collections behind the scenes. ...12 years ago
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food for thought - At the most recent meta | morphosis a participant asked what I thought about Google's then recent announcement that they were getting into the newspaper di...16 years ago
1 comment:
Your post reminds me of growing up in a place where every other house had secret passageways - a place to hide escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad. Not far from my childhood home is Aberdeen, Ohio. In the 1800s, you could stand at a safe house in Aberdeen and look across the Ohio River at Maysville, KY, and see a slave pen. The line was, and some argue, still is, that clear. As clear as the "white" and "colored" marriage records you saw. Bobby Kennedy, shortly before his death in 1968, said that we could see a black president in 40 years. May it be so. May this country embrace, and elect as its president, a person possessed of wisdom, pragmatism, and sound judgment. That person is Barack Obama.
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