Most in the community of Lefferts Gardens waited for two and a half hours or more to vote today, a patient wait reflected well in the silent video above.
They gathered gleefully -- gleefully, except for a few understandable exceptions here and there -- on a long, long line that stretched from the public school on Parkside Avenue, between Bedford and Rogers Avenues, eeking around Bedford and then to Fenimore St. and from there back toward Rogers.
The poll workers, looking exasperated as they coped with broken machines and the uncomfortable heat of the basement where the voting booths were located.
Everyone with whom we spoke expressed a feeling of hope that, finally, a resolution of one of the country's enduring conflicts was approaching.
This would be, of course, the racial divide that countless Americans had -- until not so very long ago -- assumed would last as long as the republic itself.
You see, the vast majority of residents of Prospect Lefferts Gardens are of African descent, largely from the Caribbean, and the voters reflected the demgraphic make-up of the community.
Particularly under the mayoral regime of one Rudolph Giuliani, there was a sense in these parts that the odds were stacked against them, that the police, the power brokers and, to a degree, the elite in Washington cared little about their interests.
But this is changing.
They see a new day dawning. And the very least they could do was stand in line and wait for it to come.
[Video was shot by Benjamin Niemczyk and posted on YouTube. Thanks Benjamin.]
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