Thread by @frodofied

9 years ago today Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States.

It was watershed moment for the nation and world.

But for my hometown of Chicago it was something more personal, deeper. The energy was unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life.

Strangers just out of the blue drawn to each other, hugging, crying introducing themselves.

Spontaneous applause yelling jumping up & down.

Individuals who had only met each other moments before or were expressing love for each other. Lovers were in love. New lovers fell in love.

I had been a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton's during the campaign. I had traveled to 10 states and made thousands of phone calls.

and was lucky enough in the end to represent Hillary Clinton as a delegate to the Maine state Democratic Convention.

People asked me often that night & days previous whether I was still angry. The truth would often change, that night it did not. I was not.

I had come to think of myself as something of an ambassador for the now-defunct campaign so that night I did not wear any Obama gear.

That night I walked the streets of Chicago greeting my fellow City dwellers, high-fiving anyone I could, wearing a shirt that read:

"Another Clinton Voter for Obama"

The number of nodding, knowing heads, solidarity fists, and choked​ back tears, uncountable and moving.

I was only a couple hundred yards from the stage on which Barack Obama delivered his speech that night. A speech that electrified the world.

For many of us in Chicago Grant Park has now become something like Hallowed Ground.

What I remember most is how changed it all felt.

Colors seem to have more color, wine was stronger, and my neighbor's kinder.

At last, the promise of America seemed real. Stronger. Better.

But the devil had other plans and though I don't believe in the devil this devil I know and he has a name, and many faces.

He is called the Republican Party.

And because of him the last 8 years marched by far too slowly and went by way too fast.

And that world, that wonderful world that was born 9 years ago tonight?

We can' get that back. I know it.

Resist. Rebel. Renew
Restore.

Do it for yourself and for your children. Do it your country and for me.

And do it for that night. That one, fully formed American night.