Black voters keep dream alive for 4 more years
Rough economy fails to dampen fervor for Obama
LOSANGELES— When poll workers arrived at Hillcrest Drive Elementary School in South Los Angeles at 6, eager voters were already lined up in the morning darkness. When the election was called for President Barack Obama about 15 hours later, the streets erupted in a joyful blast of honking horns.
If 2008 was about historymakingandhope, here in Baldwin Hills, the heart of middle- class, black Los Angeles, 2012 was about practicality and pride.
Obama went to work for all of America, said dozens of black voters in the Crenshaw, Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park neighborhoods.
What Obama has accomplished “means a lot, means a lot, means a lot,” said Cheryl Johnson, 55, as shewaited outside the Hillcrest auditorium to snap a picture of her son emerging from the voting booth for the first time.
“Not just for blacks, but for all races — schooling and medical insurance and jobs and so many different things,” she said of Obama’s first- term accomplishments. “Everyone needs someone fighting for them. You have to stay on your knees and give praise.”
After a contentious four years in office, Obama “was and is the greatest role model presently for our black children,” said retired assistant principal Tanya Grace, who awaited election returns with friends at Crenshaw Live Bar & Grill Tuesday night.
“He led a wonderful, wonderful campaign,” said Grace, who wore a sparkly red Obama T- shirt for the occasion. “He is man of character. I know our young black men really have something to look forward to. ... He made Martin Luther King’s dream come true.”
In the run- up to Election Day, there was much speculation that stubbornly high unemployment rates, particularly in minority communities, would dampen the enthusiasm of black voters, cut into an important, traditionally Democratic constituency and hurt Obama’s chances.
Exit polls told a very different story. Sure, the novelty of Obama’s presidency may have worn off, and the whole country is deeply weary of the sluggish recovery.
But 93 percent of black voters cast their ballots for Obama on Tuesday, according to exit polling by CNN. That’s down 2 percentage points from 2008. And African- American women remained deeply loyal; 96 percent voted for Obama in both elections.
Ruth Skinner- Poteat could be Exhibit A for deep devotion. The Baldwin Hills resident, 79, remembers being barred from the voting booth as a young womanin Florida. She does not forget “the sacrifices made by our ancestors so thatwe can vote.”
But Skinner- Poteat was ebullient, decked out in one of her many Obama Tshirts. She wears them day and night.
“I say I sleep with three men,” she joked. “God the father, God the son and Barack Obama.”