CHICAGO (AP) _ They came with memories of the past and hopes for the future. In the low-slung public housing complex where a young Barack Obama once worked as community organizer, voters eagerly cast ballots in an election many thought they would never see. In the shadows of gleaming downtown skyscrapers, the hopeful began gathering early near Grant Park, where Obama will hold an election-night rally — and perhaps a victory party.
Across this city Obama adopted as his home, people were hoping to be a part of something that will be remembered for generations.
“I want her to be able to tell her children when history was made, she was there,” said Alnita Tillman, 50, who kept her 16-year-old daughter, Raven, out of school so they could be at the park by 8 a.m., more than 10 hours before the gates opened shortly before 6:30 p.m. By evening, thousands were on hand waving flags, flashing cameras and cheering results that showed Obama with a growing lead over Republican John McCain.
A South Sider like Obama, Tillman had a coveted ticket to the rally in hand and high expectations for the man who could be the country’s first black president.
“The hope I have for Obama … it’s in the African-American males being able to see what they can be, what they can do,” she said.
The downtown Chicago park — where police fought antiwar protesters during the turbulent 1968 Democratic convention — was transformed on an unseasonably balmy night by white tents and a stage lined with American flags and adorned with red, white and blue bunting.
Lit-up windows in skyscrapers lining the park added to the festive atmosphere, spelling out “USA” and “Vote 2008.”
Among the park crowd was Lisa Boon, 42, of Chicago, who said she burst into tears earlier in the day pondering what an Obama victory would mean.
Boon said her father was the cousin of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black Chicagoan who was abducted from a relative’s home in Mississippi in 1955 and was tortured and killed, purportedly for whistling at a white woman.
“I was thinking of all the things done to Emmett and injustices to black people,” she said. “This is amazing, simply amazing.”
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., also in the rally crowd, called the election “a peaceful revolution.”
“Tonight is an extraordinary celebration of an American story,” said Jackson, a Chicago Democrat who won re-election Tuesday.
The sense of history was palpable across this city, particularly in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, where people streamed through polling places Tuesday to cast their votes for the man who once walked their streets as a community organizer.
Gilbert Benford, a 60-year-old custodian voting at the housing complex where Obama spent much of his time, Altgeld Gardens, is old enough to remember the days when blacks were hurt or killed for trying to vote, eat in a restaurant or sit in the front of a bus.
Inside the voting booth, Benford said he thought of a trip his mother took to Washington to hear a young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. talk of his dream — a dream Benford hoped voters might help the country achieve on Tuesday .
“Maybe they can level the scales of justice,” said Benford, wearing his work gloves as he left the polling place. “Maybe then they’ll be even. Everybody will live that dream.”
Back at Grant Park, Stephanie Smith, 27, and her husband flew in from Nashville, Tenn., and staked their spot on the sidewalk with folding chairs and a box of doughnuts early in the morning. Smith, wearing a blue T-shirt and an “Obama ’08” sticker, said they had made hotel reservations before finding out about the ticket requirements.
Even without tickets, though, Smith said it would be worth it to be standing in the park to hear the words: “Our next President of the United States is Barack Obama.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for,” she said.
