NAACP leader, others hail Obama victory as proof of progress

When Alfred Barfield was a teenager, he was one of 29 students who staged sit-ins at several New Bern businesses in support of the civil rights movement.

Forty-eight years later, Barfield watched with a combination of "confidence and almost disbelief" this week as Sen. Barack Obama became the first black person to be elected president of the United States.

Barfield, who is president of the Craven County chapter of the NAACP, said this year's historic presidential election is proof that people in the United States can come together. He and other black leaders in Craven County say the election shows the country has come a long way since the days of segregation.

"This is not Obama's election; this is the Lord's election," Barfield said Wednesday. "It goes to show you that the people of this country can work together as one. Part of me was surprised to see this, but I know it has been in God's plan all along. It shows that you can pass all the laws in the world to keep people separate, but a man's heart is a man's heart."

Longtime businessman Fletcher Watts thought of his parents as he watched returns come in.

"I grew up in Florida, and when I was little our parents used to carry us kids to the polls and make us sit in the car and wait for them," Watts said. "They would tell us that even if it was hard on us, we should always vote once we got the chance. I am so elated to see that there is a president who is for all people - black, white and brown. And I don't believe it would have happened if it weren't for all the young people who worked so, so hard on this."

Watts said Obama's election sends a message that some young black people need to hear.

"It means that there are no excuses anymore," Watts said. "If you want to succeed, you can. Get off the street; stay in school. Work for the total community and good things can happen."

Mary Peterkin said Obama's win means that her four grandchildren will finally have a model in the highest office in the land. Peterkin is president of New Bern's Uptown Business and Professional Association.

"We hear all the time that children are looking at what we do even more than they are listening to what we say," Peterkin said. "Now I can say: ‘Look at this man. Look what he did. He is a lot like you.'"

Ben Watford, a Fairfield Harbour resident who grew up in the segregated South, said Wednesday that he was "still in shock."

"My kids were calling me all day long saying, ‘We're winning; we're winning,'" he said. "I kept waiting for some last-minute person to come on and say that something had changed - and that never happened. It's almost a miracle."

County Commissioner Johnnie Sampson believes it is a miracle.

"I believe strongly that the Lord is in this," Sampson said. "I believe the Lord sent us someone for the troubled times we are living in, and I think all you have to do to prove that is look at how well people worked together, and how organized they were, to make this happen. It's something beyond human nature."