Election Night in Harlem
- “O-ba-ma! Yes, we can!” Photo: Mirjam Donath
By Mirjam Donath
Published in Nepszabadsag: November 05, 2008
Soon after 11 p.m. on Nov. 4. when Barack Obama was declared the winner of the presidential race, people streamed on 125th Street and let the world know in an euphoric march that “Yes, the United States could.” A black man was chosen to be the leader of the country.
Tum-tum drums sounded from the middle of the joyful crowd, and whenever someone started to chant “O-ba-ma! Yes, we can!” dancing broke out. Some people climbed up lampposts and bus shelters; others jumped on arriving cars.
Jumping on cars. Photo: Mirjam Donath
These New Yorkers did not follow the results from home. They cheered in community centers and campaign headquarters like the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building Plaza or the Harlem 4 Obama Headquarters, sharing the experience of the historic day with others. As it had been during the campaign, the theme of the day, which ended in Sen. Barack Obama’s victory, was “unity.”
In the Harlem 4 Obama Headquarters on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, Jolene Jahibio, a senior manager in medical benefits, could not take her eyes off the screen projecting election results.
“I go to vote every year,” she said, “but this is the first time that I have been really involved.” Jahibio, like many others in the room, where everything from furniture to food was donated by local voters, gave money and energy for the campaign. “Too much is at stake. No more black, white, yellow or green distinction between people, please! All we want is unity,” she said.
Shelly Martin is watching the incoming results
In front of Jahibio, Shelly Martin was sitting on the floor watching the elections. She was the first person in her family to graduate from college and now runs her own real estate business. “I feel fresh optimism among Afro-Americans here in Harlem,” she said. “They strongly hope for change and that we can end the inequalities that racism causes. Only Martin Luther King Jr. could have us believe in this before.”
Besides wearing Obama T-shirts, many supporters sported clothes with the image of charismatic black leaders like King or Malcolm X. Harlem itself proudly named its main avenues after them — Frederick Douglass, the headquarters’ street, was named after a leading abolitionist.
Obama and the message that America wants change have brought a wide variety of people together during the last months.
Tuesday night in the small room of the headquarters, Patricia Leak, a retired African-American school teacher, and undergraduate students from New York University and Columbia University were cheering together for the victory of Obama. Leak said that it was the first election night that she spent outside her home. “I stay as long as I can. I need to be here tonight,” she said.
Travis Moe, 18, was one of the few white voters in the room. He hoped that the country could regain its lost reputation in the eyes of the world. “We had enough of being identified with Bush. Obama will give us back the country’s blown honor.”
For Harlem, a moment of victory. Photo: Mirjam Donath
His friend Nick Kraus, another first-time voter, said that Sen. John McCain was too much like George W. Bush, interested in flexing his muscles overseas. “McCain is still fighting the Vietnam War in his head and we don’t need that anymore,” he said.
By the early morning hours of Wednesday the police pushed the crowd, which behaved like football fans at a World Cup championship, back to the sidewalks from the road.
“You cannot stop a person in celebration,” grumbled someone jammed behind the barricades. “We are not breaking the law here. This is disrespectful and wrong.” If not for the efforts of the police people would have danced in triumph until the next day.
—
9/11 responders go to the polls
By Suzanne Ma and Mirjam Donath
October 28, 2008
On Election Day, 9/11 responder Keith Lebow is going to the polls.
He will take the ballot and instead of putting an ‘X’ beside the name of Sen. John McCain or Sen. Barack Obama, he will write down who he thinks deserves to win the presidency: Mickey Mouse.
KEITH LEBOW – “Mickey Mouse for president!”
“You think I’m kidding, right? I am literally gonna write Mickey Mouse,” he said. “It’s a waste of a vote by a politically aware person, but by the same token, I just do not trust the government. I am sick of the lies and the half-truths.”
Lebow, a 44-year-old ironworker from Manhattan, describes himself as a patriotic American who once believed in the electoral system. But today, he’s angry, cynical and in constant pain.
He suffers from a range of lung and skin diseases, a constant reminder of the 100 hours he spent at ground zero helping to move debris and search for survivors after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. His sickness is an even bigger reminder, Lebow said, of how the government failed him.
“My faith in the government has truly been tested.”
Numerous studies have documented the detrimental health effects in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks, including respiratory, gastrointestinal and mental health conditions. These illnesses have caused not just physical strains but also financial strains for many of those exposed to the ground zero site. Lebow was working at the top of the Brooklyn Bridge when he saw the airplanes hit, and he rushed to the scene to assist. Today, he is no longer able to work and must bear the high price of health care without a federally funded national program to help him.
LEBOW shows his leg that suffered cell damage because he rubbed the dust into his skin.
In late September, Congress shelved a $10.9 billion bill to provide health care and compensation for ground zero workers, at least in part because of opposition from New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The bill would also have reopened the Sept. 11th Victim Compensation Fund with an estimated $6 billion for those who became sick after working amid the debris. But time and support ran out in Congress as attention turned to the $700 billion bailout plan intended to rescue the American financial industry.
“I haven’t seen a penny from the government.” said Lebow, who says he is $84,000 in debt. “My faith in the government has truly been tested.”
Of the approximately 410,000 people who were heavily exposed at ground zero, nearly 16,000 of them were responders. Most likely, Lebow said, there are other angry, cynical and anguished voters among them.
For a long time, John Feal was one of them. Feal, a 9/11 responder who lost half of his right foot after 8,000 pounds of steel landed on him at ground zero, said he will be voting for Sen. Barack Obama.. Immediately after the accident, Feal recalled pulling off his boot to see the bones of his feet sticking out.
“Blood squirted out of my foot. It was like a human sprinkler. The guy next to me fainted,” he said. Feal was rushed to the hospital where for 10 weeks he fought off gangrene as his body went into septic shock.
“I’m a big supporter of universal health care.”
In 2005, Feal founded the Fealgood Foundation, a nonprofit group to help 9/11 responders. He continues to suffer pain in the nerves and tendons of his legs and from post-traumatic stress, he said. He fought to receive $50,000 in workers’ compensation and a monthly amount from Social Security. Feal said he has already spent more than $250,000 on more than two dozen operations.
The foundation, however, has given him hope that the lives of 9/11 responders can change with the right politician in power.
Obama said in September that he supports funding for 9/11 health monitoring and treatment and reopening the victim compensation fund. He is the “best to lead this country now,” said Feal. “I’m a big supporter of universal health care,” he said, adding, “Sen. McCain wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. Most 9/11 responders live on that.” McCain’s campaign has not officially stated whether he would endorse the bill.
But to Glen Klein, a 9/11 responder and retired NYPD officer, strong leadership lies with the McCain campaign.
Klein was a member of the Emergency Services Unit and was on duty when the World Trade Center was attacked. He spent more than 700 hours at ground zero searching for 16 fellow officers trapped in the buildings. The 50-year-old put a lot of value on McCain’s military experience.
“I think he has a little more to his portfolio than Obama does as far as being a true American hero,” he said.
When Klein learned that his 16 fellow officers died in the towers, he admitted that the experience left him with a strong prejudice against Muslims, and felt that McCain’s policies on terrorism would protect Americans from further attacks.
“Muslims attacked us,” he said. “I know not all Muslims are bad, but it’s hard for me to forgive the people who did this to us.” Klein voted for President George W. Bush twice and considers himself a lifelong Republican, but recently switched to become an Independent so he “could go both ways.”
He said became disenchanted with the Bush administration in recent years, with the government’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, the war on terror and the recent Wall Street crisis.
The bill, H.R. 7174, was introduced in September 2008 by four New York congressmen: Democrats Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler and Republicans Vito Fossella and Peter King . Among the provisions were these:
• Provide ongoing medical care to at least 55,000 World Trade Center responders and at least 17,500 community members for 9/11 health conditions.
• Reopen the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund for 30 years to ensure that those with economic losses because of their WTC-related illnesses are compensated in a fair and timely manner.
• Provide liability protections for the City of New York and the World Trade Center contractors, who were called in to help in the nation’s time of need.
• Require a matching contribution by New York City of 10 percent for the health program, a contribution of approximately $50 million a year. Workers’ compensation payments made by the city for 9/11 conditions would be credited against this amount.
After the bill was shelved, the New York lawmakers vowed to reintroduce another bipartisan bill next year. Congressman King said in an e-mail statement: “I remain committed to ensuring that we fulfill our responsibilities to those who acted so heroically on 9/11. I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make sure that this legislation is passed in the 111th Congress.”
Bloomberg had objected to a provision in the bill that would have required the city to pay 10 percent — $500 million — of the cost.
“Now we find ourselves on our knees begging for health support which should be a priority for those who are sick.”
“It is very insulting when you have a billionaire mayor to the city of New York not provide for the men and women who helped the city,” said Alex Sanchez, who spent six months cleaning the air-conditioning systems in the buildings surrounding ground zero. “Now we find ourselves on our knees begging for health support which should be a priority for those who are sick.”
ALEX SANCHEZ and MANUEL CHECO met while cleaning up ground zero. Now Checo is the godfather of Sanchez’s son.
Sanchez was earning $9,000 a week doing this job, but was forced to retire a year later when he began to suffer from severe respiratory ailments. He was 35 years old. Today, he cannot climb up stairways because of the pain in his legs that doctors diagnosed as musculo-skeletal syndrome.
Sanchez, who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, now sees Obama as her closest equivalent, who could make the first step toward universal health care.
“We must support Barack now. There is no other way,” he said. “We cannot afford four, eight more years of failed policies. If Obama becomes the president we have an ally in the White House.”
He carries a picture of his 7-year-old son, Jack Anthony, born in 2001. “My son is going to come to the voting booths with me on Nov. 4 because I want him to truly understand that we have been part of history when we needed true leadership,” Sanchez said.
—
