Clip of Obama's rally in Richmond VA and a comment that will warm your heart

[Hamlette]

http://media.gatewayva.com/photos/rtd/slideshows/20081023rally/index.html

This comment posted about the clip on a blog:

I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and went to a private school there. My family has lived in the area for hundreds of years, dating back to the Revolutionary War. I'm white, and the only black people I saw growing up were maids, and the cafeteria workers at school, and a handful of black girls on scholarship from Harlem. My mother had a black male friend, and it seemed like a family scandal.

The Country Club of Virginia, a few blocks away, would not allow black members, and did not allow Arthur Ashe to play tennis there. A black artist spoke at one of our school assemblies, and a student later got up in blackface and mocked him. When I lived there until 1988, Richmond was a weird segregated, place. White people simply did not go to black neighborhoods - ever.

Now I live in Washington Heights (Inwood) so I'm used to being in the minority - but even if I went down to the neighborhood around the Richmond Coliseum today, I'd feel out of place. I'm not 90 years old - I'm 37. I can't tell you how it makes me feel to see that rally with the Richmond Coliseum in the background. It isn't just happy, or relieved, or excited, it's overwhelmed. It makes me feel faint with joy. I thought the day would never come.

[gblady]

1. oh.....thanks so much....

for that clip...it is very moving.

[windbreeze]

2. NO way, NO how, NO McCain....n/t

[Frances]

3. Terrific speech

I haven't been this moved since I heard JFK make his pro-American speeches when George Wallace was standing in the schoolhouse door to prevent integration in my native state of Alabama.

I hope there is a heaven and I hope that JFK and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr are all smiling down at Obama. And Obama's mother and father and that grandfather who looks so much like him.

I appreciate so much that Obama gives credit to those who came before him, especially the ordinary parents and grandparents who fought and dreamed for their children.

[Hamlette]

4. I swear I'm going to cry when I cast my vote

I've gotten overwhelmed and emotional about this.

Sometimes America gets it right. This is one of those times.

[Obamanaut]

10. I can understand that. My wife and I voted Monday in our small

Supervisor of Elections' office. The lobby area was full of people; white, black, different ages, one police officer (voting) - all smiling and talking amiably.

Shoot! I'm 66 and just got misty eyed typing this. We have a ways to go, but I think we've come a helluva long way in my lifetime.

[JoMama49]

5. Just watched the clip - wonderful photos! Thanks for

posting this - everyone should watch it! and be very proud!

[SeaLyons]

6. Wow....too beautiful for words....

takes my breath away.

Thank you for posting.....I don't know if my emotions can take anymore, but thank you.

[graywarrior]

7. That was fantastic

So moving. I am just a bundle of emotions these last weeks. Everytime I hear him speak and experience the crowd reactions, I just have so much hope....for the first time in 8 years.

[grantcart]

8. 100 years they will be studying this

and we get to watch it for free

great link and story

[Hamlette]

13. they will play his speeches as we do MLKs now

It is such a great thing to witness. I remember marching for civil rights here in my lily white state (there were not many of us, I was young but my mom put black arm bands on us and we all went down to the federal building) and I remember the clips on TV of fire hoses (my mom who generally never watched TV was glued to the story of civil rights, she'd call us in to watch but then not comment, let us make up our own minds)

And now this. Glad she's around to see this and only wish my Dad was.

[Jackeens]

9. Stunning! Thank you for posting.

[Hamlette]

11. kick

[firedupdem]

12. wow...thanks n/t