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Tampa Area Black Voters See A Dream Realized

Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

Patrons at Good Luck Cafe in Ybor City celebrate after CNN projected Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama as the winner Tuesday.

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By BAIRD HELGESON

bhelgeson@tampatrib.com

Published: November 5, 2008

TAMPA - It wasn't an election. It was THE election.

These blacks from Tampa filled in the bubble for a candidate they felt passionately about.

They voted for Barack Obama.

A few paused in the voting booth: Imagine, a black president.

They look at Obama, his wife and their wide-eyed daughters poised to take residence in the White House. For the first time, they see themselves looking back.

Barack. What is that name?

The election offered some blacks a chance to recall the ones who came before, the ones who never thought this day would come, and a few who knew it would. The ghosts were everywhere.

The election signaled a tectonic shift in the nation's consciousness. For many blacks, it said: We've arrived.

Here are some of their stories:

Cynthia Littles never thought she would see a black president. She never believed one would have a legitimate shot at the nation's highest office in her lifetime.

"He's making good," said Littles, 53, who is unemployed. "There's so much bad in the past, so much hatred and anger."

Friends and relatives told Littles as a young girl that some things would be out of reach. Maybe things would be different for her kids, if not her grandkids, they said.

She thought of them often on Election Day, saddened that they wouldn't see this momentous day. And she thought of civil rights leaders who knew this day would come.

"Dr. Martin Luther King is up in heaven looking down, and he's happy," Littles said. "He couldn't do it, but Obama can do it for him."

Bernadine Anthony, 50, couldn't remember when she first heard of Obama. She recalled that he emerged, almost magically, as a frontrunner.

Obama's intellect, passion and ideas captivated her immediately, she said.

"He's a gift from God," said Anthony, who lives in West Tampa. "It's a miracle."

Anthony can't stop thinking about the name, Barack.

"I've never heard that name before; it doesn't sound human," she said. "It must be that he's an angel sent to us from heaven."

On Tuesday afternoon, she wore an Obama campaign sticker on her shirt, right about where her heart is.

James Green said he still believes President Bush and the Republican Party stole the election in 2000.

The memory burns.

But Obama's rise to the presidency is a powerful statement to his children that they can do anything, Green said.

"It shows them you can do it, too," said Green, 55, who lives in West Tampa. "I never thought I'd see that. I tell them they can do it, and I tell them, but nothing matches this."

Calvin Colquitt of Temple Terrace said a lot of blacks saw no use in voting after the 2000 election. They lost hope that their vote counted.

But something felt different this time.

"It feels like it actually might count for real," said Colquitt, a tutor. "You actually walk into the poll place and you're like, yeah!"

He left inspired.

"Right now, people need hope," he said. "We can hear a speech or a lecture or you can show us all kinds of numbers on paper, but right now people just need hope."

Curtis Rodgers is only 3 years old and can't say too many words.

Whom does he want to be president?

"Obama!" he shouted with a toothy grin. "Obama!"

Mildred Johnson, his great-grandmother, took him to her polling place on Columbus Drive in West Tampa.

"Where's Obama?" he asked enthusiastically.

Curtis hoped he would see Obama, she explained quietly.

"Come on," she said. "We can go see Obama on the television."

Kaysee McClaurin stood at the corner of Busch Boulevard and North 56th Street holding an Obama sign and waving to passing motorists who honked or gave a thumbs-up.

"It's phenomenal," the 19-year-old first-time voter said. "He's creating a legacy of hope."

McClaurin said she didn't have the right words to express how she felt.

"Something just feels different, like the world has changed," said McClaurin, who works in a nursing home. "I feel like, yes, this is America."

Photographer Kathy Moore contributed to this report. Reporter Baird Helgeson can be reached at (813) 259-7668.

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