Ralliers cheer election results
Quintarius Oliver was working at Red Lobster — a disruption to his continuous consumption of election news and updates — when he figured he should check CNN on his phone Saturday morning. “Joseph Biden is the president- elect,” an alert from the news network read.
“I screamed so loud,” Oliver, 19, said as he set down a giant, white Biden-Harris flag that he bought three weeks ago “for this day.”
Then he started crying.
“Not only did Joe win, Kamala won,” he said, marveling at Vice President- elect Kamala Harris. “If onlymy grandma was alive to see a Black woman in office, that would’ve been the icing on the cake.”
Oliver was among a few dozen people gathered Saturday evening at City Hall to dance, cheer and chant in celebration of Biden defeating President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States.
Like countless other 16-yearolds on a Saturday morning, Alaina Campos was asleep. Her mom woke her up to tell her the news. She, too, cried — “a little bit,” she said.
“I just felt so happy — I mean complete happiness that we’re not going to have him in office anymore, that Biden’s going to be our president,” she said, omitting from her sentence the name of the first incumbent president to not be re- elected since George H.W. Bush in 1992.
She learned of the rally via Twitter and felt compelled to show up after seeing images of celebrations in other cities while Houston seemed a bit silent.
“It’s just important to show that we’re not going to allow a racist president in the office anymore,” she said, as she spotted a pickup with a Trump flag flying from its bed approaching a street next to the crowd. The driver slowed down and honked but kept driving.
Theodore Harris, 32, was eating a Taco Bell breakfast taco when the presidential contest was called. He heard about the rally soon after and wondered how he could participate. A friend gave him a sign long enough to fit in big block letters: “TRUMP LIES.” And underneath it: “220,000 DIE.”
“I’m out here just enjoying the atmosphere,” he said holding the sign.
Shelly Baker, founder of activist group Say Her Name HTX, was getting ready for another rally to protect votes scheduled for the morning when the alert popped up on her phone.
The 28-year- old screamed. After that, she FaceTimed her cousin in Los Angeles and then called a friend in Washington, D.C. The toots of cars being honked in the nation’s capital swelled into their phone call.
Her friend joined by screaming out her window.
Baker looked at the shirt she planned to wear to the morning rally. “Black women are the blueprint,” it said. Now that the race had been decided, she had another shirt she had been waiting to wear.
“Trump is a loser,” it said. The elation had not worn off when a few hours later she was en route to celebrate a friend’s birthday and realized no celebration had been planned in Houston in light of the news. She made a flyer for the evening rally on her phone and sent it to people in her network who also organize. They all blasted it on social media around 3: 30 p.m., she said.
“Nobody had really planned anything,” she said. “If I can, I will.”
The turnout was not bad, she said, considering the event came about in an hour and a half or so.
And about an hour and a half after it started, she sat behind City Hall, saying goodbye to last few ralliers.
“It’s almost like we have our freedom back,” she said. “Now we have the freedom to do what we need to do — to actually put in the work to move forward.”