I had no plans to post today. But on this date four years ago, November 2, 2016, Barack Obama spoke at UNC as the last presidential election campaign wound down. My ticket has been pinned to my bulletin board since, and it got me thinking. So I dug out some reflections about that day I’d written but never published. It beat doomscrolling while awaiting tomorrow night.
A BLACK CURTAIN parts and Barack Obama steps through. Led by his smile, President Obama ascends a staircase and strides onto a sun-soaked stage. The crowd erupts. It is 3:43 in the afternoon. The people here had begun lining up on UNC’s campus shortly after dawn, near a slave and African-American cemetery. The joyful line quickly lengthened into a crooked ouroboros, looping a full mile atop brick sidewalks and returning to its start, eating its own tail.
Although the stage on Hooker Fields faces the cemetery across the street, Obama’s view of it is obstructed. Our backs are turned to it. He is here to stump for Hillary Clinton. The election is a few days ahead.
“I love me some North Carolina!” Obama says when he steps to the mic. “I always say that North Carolina, that’s one place where even the people who don’t vote for me are nice.”
We laugh.
“It's true,” he says, still smiling. “Just good people. Just good people.”
Obama’s crisp, white shirt reflects the unseasonably potent sunshine beaming down in November. Some shade our heads with cafeteria takeout containers or library books. More than 60 require medical attention during the rally, and whenever Obama spots someone collapse from dehydration, he calmly calls for medics and water, and then he continues on. “We got a beautiful summer day in November,” the optimistic president says, spinning what feels like climate change — nearly 80 degrees and not a whisper of a breeze — to those of us standing on plastic grass.
Uncharacteristically, Obama has come to tell us that our 240-year-old American experiment is over. We realize, though, that he just wants to scare us to the voting booth. North Carolina is the focus of the political press at the tail end of the 2016 campaign. The polls here are tight, and without our state, the experts say, Donald Trump can’t win. “So I hate to put a little pressure on you,” he says, “but the fate of the republic rests on your shoulders.” Some giggle a little more. “The fate of the world is teetering, and you, North Carolina, are going to have to make sure that we push it in the right direction.”
The bulk of the 16,200 of us don’t really believe the outcome, nor the republic, is in much danger. Trump is a lock to lose in six days. How could he not? We are charging up in the sunlight for the America that’s about to make, back-to-back, a Black man and a woman the president. It is an America that, though deeply flawed as this campaign has made plain, might one day fulfill its promise.
Before Obama, some local speakers evoke a time not so long ago when white men monopolized authority here. But we hear these stories as evidence of inevitable progress rather than warnings. James Taylor tosses bottles of water into the crowd and asks for a medic to aid one of us. He sings “Carolina In My Mind,” the love song to this place he’d released not long after he’d attended Chapel Hill High School about the time it fully integrated.
As Obama speaks, someone yells loud enough for him to hear, “Love you, Obama!”
“I love you too,” he says back. “But I got some business I got to do here.”
We chuckle.
“I’ll give you a hug on the way out.”
We clap.
“But right now, we got to focus on some bidness. Not business — but bidness.”
In the official White House transcript, the slang is whitewashed. All instances of “bidness” that day become “business,” including the now nonsensical line: “Not business — but business.” Obama’s other colloquialisms are not corrected.
The vibe feels more like an outdoor concert than a series of political speeches, even with Secret Service agents crawling about. It is easy to forget after eight years that there’d been a lot of open fear for Obama’s life when he first ran for president. The Obamas were even asked about the risk in a joint interview for “60 Minutes.” People worried that becoming the most powerful man in the world would make his skin more dangerous to wear. Especially in an open field like this. He had survived though. The country, he is saying, might not.
To enter the field, the mile-long line of us had sifted through a dozen metal detectors plus hand-wands operated by the TSA and Secret Service while K9s stood guard. As Obama reminds us of Jim Crow voting hurdles like “literacy” tests and jelly bean jars, men with long binoculars and longer guns stand guard on the rooftop behind him. The sunlight penetrates Obama’s dress shirt, and from 100 feet away I can see the lines of his tank-top undershirt against his shoulders. He is at ease. He wears no tie, his top shirt button is undone, and his sleeves are rolled up. For stretches, he leans against the lectern and casually rests his left hand in his suit pants pocket.
Suddenly, a mild commotion spreads. Dozens around me turn their heads away from the president. Jaws drop. Fingers point. I turn around too. At the front of reserved bleachers stands a barrel-torsoed man with a white mustache and a Purple Heart cap holding a Trump sign in the air. A portion of the crowd turns its attention upon him.
A man in a dark suit with a coiled wire leading to his ear appears. He leans in without touching and speaks calmly into the man’s ear. They talk back and forth. A time or two, the man even grins. Shortly, he descends the stairs and exits the risers.
As he turns sideways and slides through the heel-to-toe crowd, he keeps holding up his sign so that “TRUMP” glides through just above eye level. He brushes past a group of young Black people, his sign in their faces. They glare. They do not react. At numerous Trump rallies, his supporters had shoved and hit demonstrators, at Trump’s urging. Obama doesn’t let on that he notices.
Obama returns to themes from eight years before and to his optimism as he concludes with a rhetorical flourish in his signature cadence.
“Tell them,” he urges us, “this is the moment where America stands up for our best selves!”
We applaud. There’s energy on the stage and below.
“Stand up and reject cynicism! Stand up and reject fear! Choose hope. Choose hope. Choose hope. Choose hope. Choose hope.”
We applaud.
“Vote! And if you do, we will elect Hillary Clinton the next President of the United States.”
We applaud and cheer.
“We’ll continue this amazing journey and finish what we started, and remind the world why this is the greatest country on Earth!”
Obama lingers on the stage in his white shirt, waving, collecting a roar for one of the final times as president. He picks up a perfectly folded plush towel and dabs sweat from his forehead. He takes a drink of water. Then he descends the stairs and exits the stage. The future is coming. Some of us cut through the cemetery on our way to it.
ONE GOOD THING:
Tomorrow is here.
SOURCES & CREDITS:
All photos: Mike Ogle