The Day The World Changed

5th November 2008. Approximately 3:15pm. Sydney, Australia.

I was in the 9th of typical work day. It was a Wednesday, so I had a Unit Morphology meeting in the morning, and had spent the rest of the day pretending to do work.

In reality I was refreshing the Yahoo! and CNN websites every ten minutes tracking the 2008 US Presidential Elections.

New Hampshire was the first win, then Virginia and the almighty Ohio. It had happened. Barack Obama became the 44th President and the first African-American to hold the office.

I read articles and saw pictures flooding the internet with news of Obama’s win and thousands around the world celebrating the historic events. All while I went about my business sitting in my office cubicle.

The world was on fire. News from my brother in North Carolina came through, the male dormitory in a small private college went wild. Every account of the moment talked about people rejoicing in the streets. In New York, Chicago, London and even Sydney.

Of the most iconic moments in the 21st Century, and I was sitting in my cube. A civil rights victory for our era. Not just for black people, but every disenfranchised person on earth. A position held exclusively by rich white people was now held by a Black man who lived on food stamps for a part of his childhood.

I should have been out on the streets, in the midst of all the hoopla, but I just sat in my cube, smiling to myself.