My "Mini-Memoir" of My Work on the Wilson Obama Campaign by Asa StrikeAmendment’One Gregory on Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Response: I believe this is relevant today as we approach the 2012 Presidential Election. This is a very inspirational piece from someone whom I have met recently and have been communicating with for quite sometime before we actually met.

My good friend, Rev. Alonzo Braggs, called on me to write this as a step to my next calling in this life. Many thanks, Alonzo!

 

Drafted to Serve the Campaign

 

In April of 2008, I lost my second source of income when Ritz Camera closed shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I resigned my position as Educational Assistant at Vision Quest Alternative Middle School and began packing up my previous eight months of New Mexico life.

 

With an old friend and co-worker (Matt Morace) from a Ritz Camera that also closed in Greenville, North Carolina a few years ago, I packed up my cat Ringo and all of my belongings and began the journey back to North Carolina. Two and a half days later, I arrived in Wilson around noon on April 11, 2008. Dad left instructions for me to unload my car from the trailer and head to the Obama headquarters on Tarboro Street and meet with Field Organizer for the primary, Anna Scott.

 

My Mom helped me get my car off. I drove to the headquarters and met Anna. She charged me with the mission of heading to the Piggly Wiggly on Nash Street to register voters before the voter registration deadline at 5pm that day. After an hour and a half of talking with customers leaving the store, I had a stack of 13 new voter registrations. Noting the deadline, Anna asked me to meet her at the Wilson County Board of Elections.

 

We met, reviewed the registrations for error and successfully submitted all but one of the registrations. The adrenaline rush of the quick experience had me hooked for the next four weeks. The culmination of my work on the phone banks, neighborhood canvassing and volunteer/office organizing with Anna and other paid Obama operatives and volunteers was the primary victory for Senator Barack Obama on my 31st birthday, May 6.

 

After a summer of service at a Presbyterian Conference Center for youth conferences in the mountains near Asheville, my Dad again called me to meet the new Wilson Field Organizer for the General Election campaign. His name was Jon Dynes, a 19 year old dynamite recent super volunteer that delayed entry to Ball State to work in Wilson County. August was filled with canvassing and phone calls in the temporary Obama office in Rep. G.K. Butterfield’s old office building on Jackson. As the Democratic National Convention approached, Jon mentioned the desire to organize an Obama acceptance speech watch party.

 

My Dad, who had also been highly energized and involved in the early stages of the General effort, was happy to suggest we host the party. My Mom and I agreed emphatically. On August 28, we gathered about 14 people in my parents’ living room. A reporter for the Wilson Daily Times was invited by Jon and he interviewed the diverse group of people before taking a group photo that wound up on the front page with the story. The photo of the group, which was mostly African American, proved to be an uncomfortable sight for the parishioners of my Dad’s country church. It was never stated outright, but my family overwhelmingly felt that racism was in play in the termination of Dad’s relationship with the church he served for fifteen years.

 

This outcome was indicative of many obstacles that I and so many others would encounter along the two month fall campaign trail here in Wilson. Obama signs were stolen or defaced (three from my parents’ side lot) all over the town. It became very personal for me when someone left a note on my windshield that read:

 

After reading your stickers…wish your mother believed in abortion! Don’t you[?]

 

Opponents of the Obama campaign amped up their efforts locally as the election drew closer. Their actions were, in most cases, obviously racially motivated or at least dripping with fear.

 

Those that I worked with on the campaign were very resilient and inspired me every day. Virginia Williams, E.D. Arrington, Frank Jones, Linda Cooper-Suggs, Mattie Jones, Mrs. Barnes, Ray Chambers, Anthony Hines, Everette Speight, Don Moos, Bettie Lucas, Jon Dynes, Hart Bailey, Sean Respass, Torey Newton, Khalid Hudson, Sybill Sutton, Candance Sutton Sauls, Tiffany Jackson (Abells), John and Emy Hinnant, Reid Johnson, Maria Albani, Norman Johnson, Gov. and Carolyn Hunt, A.P. Coleman, Brenda Avery, Rep. G.K. Butterfield, Rep. Jean Farmer-Butterfield (who put together an amazing Obama Brunch for Democratic candidates), Melanie Mauzé, Lady Jay and her musical crew (thanks for sharing the song), Janet Conner-Knox (and her sons Jay and Sherrod), Blake Segers and many others (forgive my memory) were all key players in the pushback against the attacks on our campaign. They registered voters, had productive conversations with undecided voters, drove voters to the polls, and got out the vote in the final couple of weeks.

 

I don’t like to single out people above the rest, but I was especially touched and inspired by the efforts of Virginia Williams. From meeting her at the Obama speech watch party, I knew that Virginia was a special woman. I had no idea just how much one person could do to help elect a president. Virginia was a tireless, amazing volunteer. In addition to her extensive ministry work in the neighborhoods of Wilson, she added long days of voter registration drives at grocery stores and simply walking in the streets armed with stacks of voter registration forms. As a group, we registered approximately 1,600 new voters in Wilson County. Virginia had to have done 200 or more single-handedly over the course of two months. Her work and our work paid off when Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States.

 

Virginia remained in contact with my Mom by phone throughout September through January. The last we heard from Virginia was a call to Mom in early January. “I’m going,” she said. “Going where,” my Mom asked. “I’m going to the Inauguration!”

 

My Dad read a very short obituary in the paper shortly after that that mentioned the death of Virginia Williams of Daniels Street. I stopped in my tracks in the kitchen and hung my head and wept. If there was anyone who deserved to witness Obama’s inauguration, I would have said it was Virginia Williams. I went to the Inauguration with my Dad, oldest brother and my nephew (all officially named Henry, 4-6). In my left inside coat pocket, as cheers and my gaze went up to the sky after “…so help me, God," was an article that appeared in the Wilson Daily Times about Virginia’s work feeding the poor and homeless during the holidays. It was printed when staff of the WDT realized they had let her passing slip past even them. That was how Virginia would have wanted it, though. She did everything in life and for the campaign to the glory of her Lord.

 

The long hours, the extremely hot and cold days of the campaign were only the beginning in my eyes. I was in shock in the days after the election. Mom snapped a picture of me sitting in my former seat at the headquarters as I took a break from cleaning up with Hart, Bettie and other volunteers. That picture was the capturing of the first moment in two and a half months that I realized I could rest. Frankly, I didn’t like it.

 

I hunger for more. I know more work is ahead. More people need to be educated about their rights and get registered to vote. There is more discrimination and marginalizing of so many Americans. There can be no complacency and apathy. We need to keep moving…for the Abrahams, Fredericks, Harriets, Medgars, Jacks, Malcolms, Martins, Bobbys, Cesars, Rosas, Pauls and now Teddys. They are out there…just waiting to be reached and called to serve in specific active roles. I’ll be looking for them for the rest of my life for I am grateful for the Fall of 2008 as the overt call to my soul.

So, this is done…on to the next calling.

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