As I sat there election night 11.4.08, 8pm CDT down in New Orleans, I momentarily found myself in an euphoric state of shock. I remembered the 2000 and 2004 election nights, so enough said. I began to think about the pride and joy of what my elders were feeling that night.

I thought about my previous 14 years on the Afromation Highway. I thought back to the Summer of 2004 when my mother was a Nebraska Delegate to the DNC in Boston. She injured her leg the day before she was to leave Omaha for the convention. She was not about to miss the National Democratic Convention! An event that would be the first major national security event since 9/11. It was the last place I would even think about going, but how could I let my mother go to the East Coast injured. So I met her there. The Nebraska Delegation was at the Tremont Hotel, along with the Louisiana Delegation, a southern state with the second highest percentage of African Americans; only South Carolina’s was higher. My father, my father’s father and my father’s father’s father were all born and raised in Webster Parish, Louisiana. Like the Woods men who came before me, the Louisiana Delegation was pretty reserved. I suppose I had seen one too many movies about the Big Easy, and may have been expecting umbrellas, beads and second lines. The reality was that the Louisiana Delegation had a powerful US Senator John Breaux, the junior US Senator Mary Landrieu and a ranking US Representative on the House Ways & Means Committee named William Jefferson.  They were the Democratic Party.

The Nebr. Delegation was partying in the hospitality suite every night. During the day times, Nebraska junior US Sen. Ben Nelson would stroll through the Tremont checking on his fellow Nebraskans. The First Lady of the State of Maine Karen Balducci accepted an invitation from “Nebraska’s Democratic Divas” to a tea party at the Tremont; which in 2004 meant you drank tea.  Rep. John Lewis stopped by. We were having a great time. I guess coming from a Western solidly Republican state, the small delegation of Nebraska Democrats were just happy to be at the big dance showing their support for the big ticket. It was arguably the most expensive party in the history of the world (until the RNC in NYC a week or two later). A Howard University-educated lobbyist, from a bond market association, told me that this was the “Superbowl of Lobbying”. So I donned my lobbying hat and starting pushing my agenda to integrate American History to anyone who would listen. “Hi, I am Michael Woods from Henderson, NV, and I represent the Afromation Coalition. Oh, the lady in the wheel chair, that’s my mother  Nebraska Delegate and Douglas County Commissioner Carole Woods Harris.”

I quickly found out the you have to spend a lot of money to lobby. But then I started seeing all the causes outside of the Sheraton who did not have any money. I joined them.  I pushed my mother to her sessions inside then would run outside to my spot where I held up my book AFROMATION.

Later that evening, 7.27.04, I would assist my mother to the convention assembly. We traveled by coach bus into a huge secured perimeter. Downtown Boston was on lockdown. The Big Dig belonged exclusively to us out-of-towners. Boston was now the center of the political world; but with the heightened security it was now a ghost town. When we arrived at the Fleet Center staging area I saw something that I will never forget. Just to the left of the security screening tents was the “Free Speech Zone“. All  who went to the 2004 DNC know what I am talking about. There was just a dozen people in a barbed wire fenced in area the size of a segregated exercise cage at any prison USA, or Southern Cuba. It was a newer world order. Most of the convention goers paid them no mind,  or maybe they took note as well.