The days leading up to the presidential election in 2008 were tense. Well, at least they felt that way to me. I remember having an awkward conversation the week before with one of my best friends' moms about the election. She had told me that she wanted to vote for Barack Obama but she was afraid that he'd get assassinated. She vented to me about how she felt this country needed a change but she wasn't sure if people were ready for it. I didn't know what to say. I was 13. I remember the Monday before election day, my school set up mock election voting booths. As my homeroom class headed to the assigned voting room, some of my classmates and I chatted about who we'd vote for. I proudly proclaimed that I'd vote for Barack Obama and that I wished I was old enough to vote. One of the kids in my class replied by saying, "You're only voting for him because he's black." I retorted with a forceful "No I'm not," and tried to avoid that kid for the rest of the day. The truth is, at the time, I really didn't have much other reason for wanting for vote for him other than that. On election night, my parents let me stay up late to watch the results roll in. They invited my grandmother over and we huddled around the TV for the rest of the night. I fell asleep for a good chunk of the coverage, but my mother's screaming woke me up hours later. "He won! My president is black!" she screamed. My grandmother cried. All of the tense feelings I had been harboring dissipated and it almost felt as if the room was alight with a hazy, hopeful glow. Or maybe that was just my half-asleep brain. It's only now that I remember the story of how my grandmother and grandfather almost got lynched on their way to a Martin Luther King Jr. rally in Mississippi that I understand the weight of her tears that day. Barack Obama's election and presidency gave a sense of hope to the black community, and if I could go back in time to that eighth grade boy who said I was only voting for Barack because he was black, I would have looked him dead in the eye and said: "You're damn straight." - Janae Price

Chicago always buzzes with productive energy and election night 2008 was no different: I hit a party at the Hilton Chicago, a who’s who affair. I peered out a window overlooking throngs gathered at Grant Park, where the Obama family would later take the stage in victory and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. would be photographed in the crowd shedding a tear. Some would say those were crocodile tears, but wiser folks know a dude named Jesse coming from slave stock Down South should’ve been first. People who do their homework would know how Jackson changed the game and the rules to make it possible for Obama to run — and win. Settling in at a River North restaurant with a small group of mostly black professionals, I hunched over my laptop clacking out a story on deadline as CNN announced Obama’s historic win, his countenance glowing from the oversized TV screen. Sam Cooke’s soaring anthem “Change Is Gonna Come,” filled the space. A brief heaviness descended on the room as epic memories rushed through our collective psyche. With Great Migration backgrounds, America's history of racial terror was the reason many of us came to be in that city in that room. Holding their breaths in disbelief, folks finally let go and cried — together. They, we, me were happy for what Obama represented even if we would have to both check him and protect him. But we were also happy for us. If America saw him, maybe they could see us, too, if they really tried. I never fell for the myth Obama’s election would solve the problem with America, built-in structural inequity powered by racism. His ascendancy was an optical start. Besides, when would the country get another chance to choose someone with his intellect, even temper and good sense to marry a brilliant black woman like Michelle? With a white mother, he didn’t carry the baggage of enslavement that discomfits those white Americans looking for an easy way out of the race conversation. Here was a blue moon moment where a negro-they-know got past the gauntlet, while the housing crisis and double-digit joblessness succeeded in invisibilizing many African-Americans with similar backstories as the Obamas. As a nation, we had some wins, like healthcare (for now). But there’s a sense Obama could have pushed harder, been bolder. He insisted on being nice when being kind was enough. Nice is to be earned as we would soon learn. Living in a black body, one thing I know for sure is Obama’s presence amplified what we thought we knew and what we definitely know through lived experience and rigorous inquiry into America’s racist underpinnings, embedded in every contemporary institution and practice. Now, here we are, and to paraphrase comedian Tiffany Haddish, we ain’t ready. - Deborah Douglas