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Emotional win for many on LI

BY MARTIN C. EVANS | martin.evans@newsday.com

12:26 AM EST, November 5, 2008

Shortly after 11 p.m., when Sen. Barack Obama was declared the winner, the sound truck Eugene Burnett had driven through the streets of Babylon Township to rally voters to the polls was quiet.

The volunteers he had signed up to work polling stations in North Amityville and Wheatley Heights were hoarse from cheering in front of a television at an election-night party near the Obama for President headquarters on Straight Path in Wyandanch.

And Burnett, 79, was immersed in thoughts about his old friend, Eugene Reed, a fellow civil rights activist, who once faced down an armed mob in Mississippi while promoting voting rights in the 1960s, and who had died six years ago.

"We used to say that if a black man ever was elected president, we would dance down Straight Path together," said Burnett of Wheatley Heights, referring to the main road leading through Wyandanch.

"We never believed this day would come in our lifetime," he added. "I'm just sorry my old buddy didn't live to see this."

As election results flashed on television screens, Burnett reflected on the generation of civil rights leaders that made Obama's ascendancy possible.

Obama's election comes 43 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which swept away legal barriers that prevented many black Americans from casting ballots.

"They were our finest generation," said Burnett, who Tuesday wore overalls in memory of civil rights workers who went south during the 1960s. "They changed America."

Reed, a North Amityville dentist who died at 79 in 2002, was a fiery civil rights activist who organized sit-ins, boycotts and picket lines to protest school segregation on Long Island and New York City in the 1960s.

When Reed went to Philadelphia, Miss., as part of an NAACP investigation of the murder of civil rights workers James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael H. Schwerner, he faced down a group of rifle-toting men.

Over the years, Burnett has said he was concerned that few young people appeared interested in taking over the task of advocating for social issues from his generation of civil rights activists.

He said greater social activism is still needed to address lingering social problems on Long Island.

But last night, as Obama was declared the winner, he said he was heartened by the enthusiasm of young volunteers who placed telephone calls to prospective voters in Wyandanch and in North Carolina from the Obama headquarters in Wyandanch.

"Not being involved is not an option in my family," said Zakhia Grant, 31, a geology teacher from Wyandanch who has been doing voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities for the Obama campaign since December. "It's not about race; it's about someone who did everything right with respect to the American dream."

Among a crowd of about 70 people who watched the election returns with Burnett was Dorothea Maloney, 41. Her uncle, George Kopchynski, had been a civil rights activist with Reed and Burnett before he died in 2004.

"I'm sure Mr. Burnett is awestruck right now," said Maloney, who said she is excited that her 4-year-old biracial son will grow up in a time when a black president is no longer a novelty. "I don't think he thought he would ever see this day."