I must confess that when I initially applied to volunteer with the Obama campaign here in Georgia, I never anticipated that it would lead me down the road upon which I am now traveling. Originally, I came to Georgia because I saw the enormity of the need here: there are close to one million unregistered voters in this state alone, over six hundred thousand of whom are black.

Since working here in Macon, I have come to realize that the voter registration laws here have been crafted in a manner that deliberately makes it hard for both working people and for poor people to vote. The Bibb County Board of Elections is the only place in Bibb County where folks here can go to procure a free voter ID. It’s tucked away off of a remote road 20 minutes north of downtown and is only open from 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday. No nights. No weekends. As you can probably imagine, people who work from 9 to 5 are, in some cases, taking public transportation, that they have children and so many other obligations that they have a difficult time making it there to register; as such, many of them don’t. Not to mention, once they get to the board of elections, they are required to show proof of birth, residence, utility bills, employment and a hundred other documents that have successfully prevented many people from going through the trouble. And yet, when one registers for either a hunting or for a fishing license here in the state of Georgia they are automatically registered to vote. You can see, probably all-too clearly, what we’re up against.

There are, however, many of us here who are so inspired by this amazing opportunity for change that we have determined not to allow de jure racism prevent us from registering as many people as possible. Senator Obama is right when he says to America that what is happening now across the nation is not about him; every day I realize this more and more. It isn’t about Senator Obama, rather it’s about Rosa Watkins, a woman who has raised a daughter and is now raising a granddaughter, yet comes into the office at 8:30 p.m., after having helped her grandchild with her homework, to make phone calls; it’s about Ms. Juanita who ruins her freshly manicured lime-green fingernails by spending four hours ripping off labels on old manila folders so that we can make up voter registration walk packets; it’s about Mr. Ford who, when I come home from work at 1 a.m., I see sitting on the edge of his bed in his boxers and a wife-beater, writing the return addresses on the registration forms from the day before so that we can mail them out the next morning; it’s about Drew Benbow, Ashley Diaz and Brooke Obie, Mercer University Law Students who, after exams and hours of studying, come out to different clubs with me until the wee hours of the morning to register voters; it’s about Ms. Arthena Caston, a working mom who, after working a 10-hour shift at Geico, comes by the office to help us enter data; it’s about Mrs. Beverly Ford who I hear walking around the house until 2 a.m. printing off lists of housing projects that we still need to canvass; it’s about Gwen Lipford who, though working a hard shift at the prison, still comes to an organizational meeting in the basement of a church to turn in 11 registration forms that she was able to get during the past week; and it’s about Mrs. Montgomery, a 94-year old woman who walks a mile and a half from the bus depot to the campaign headquarters downtown twice a week in the sweltering Georgia sun to make ID calls. These are the individuals who are the feet of this movement; these are the people who are the heart and soul of what has become much more than simply a political campaign. It’s a revolution. So many of us are tired of the same kind of politics; so many of us across the nation are tired of the same people being overlooked and marginalized and left without a voice.

Many people look back upon the Civil Rights Era with nostalgia; they talk about what an awesome time it was to be alive; and yet, not everyone was marching with Medgar Evers who, for a time, was the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi; not everyone participated in the Montgomery Bus Boycotts or in the Freedom Rides or in the Greensboro Sit-Ins. There are people who tell me every day that what we are trying to do here is impossible. And yet, there was a time in America when it was considered impossible for a black person to be considered more than three-fifths of a human being. I have seen people inspired and lives transformed before my eyes, including my own.

Even as I type these words I’m sitting in my car with my computer on my lap, in the parking lot of a church where, in minutes, I am about to talk to the congregation about the importance of being part of the change that this state, that this country and that we all so desperately need. This movement has taught so many of us to hope as we have never dared to hope before. We have dared to believe that each of us and that this nation can be better. Though Georgia is currently the toughest battle-ground state for Senator Obama to win come November, I know that we can do it. This is the change that we are all working so hard for; this is the change that I feel so blessed to be a part of.

Amanda Bass, ’10