The line traced the border of Joe Louis Arena and wound itself down the concrete banks of the Detroit River. We followed it past Hart Plaza, behind Cobo Hall and alongside the mighty Detroit Princess steamboat (see above photo), ten minutes after being instructed to find its end. Ultimately reaching the Renaissance Center's General Motors entrance, the quarter-mile pathway to an historic evening welcomed my son, my friend and myself along for the ride.
It was twenty minutes after six o'clock. The city's first public appearance by the nation's first African American nominee--in the arena named after Detroit's Brown Bomber--was still nearly two hours away. Doors would not be open for another ten minutes. Yet as we stood in line, watching it grow behind us, we had no idea whether we had arrived too late. Will we even make it in? we wondered. As word spread that Cobo would open its doors and allow overflow crowds to watch the speech on its jumbotron screen, one thought lingered in my mind.
Too bad Barack Obama didn't win Michigan, huh?
Well we made it through the doors, endured the secret service's version of airport security and found seats with a clear view of the stage. As unexpected as this had been just an hour earlier, it paled to our complete surprise when we saw governor Jennifer Granholm introduce Obama and his invited guest, former VP Albert Gore (pics below are courtesy of an acquaintence of mine, Tom Tomich).
Two historical figures, pointed in the same direction. One, a Nobel Prize and Oscar-winning activist who happened to win the popular vote in the 2000 Presidential Election, endorsing the other, the first African American nominee for the nation's highest office. Gore spoke of Jack Kennedy and the importance of elections. Obama reiterated much of what he's said over the previous nine months, yet most around me were taking it in for the first time. And though I had heard much of it several times before, being in the same room as he ignites and unites tens of thousands of people with the notion that we can make this country of ours a better place, left me tingling. Hell, just three months ago I wouldn't have dreamed of a night like this!
Since becoming the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, Obama has traversed our state three times now, bringing Jon Edwards' endorsement to Grand Rapids and Gore's to the D, and speaking in Flint earlier on this brisk June Monday. Given the importance of winning Michigan in November, we've not seen the last of the Illinois senator around these parts.
