Print Media

Today is Election Day, and I found myself thinking about election nights as a kid. In the 1960s and 70s, election night in Cleveland County, North Carolina, meant going downtown to Shelby.

The Shelby Daily Star had a huge chalkboard on the side of its building. Across the top were the precincts. Down the side were the candidates, grouped by office. A couple of men stood on ladders with chalk in their hands, waiting for numbers. No instant returns scrolled across a television screen. No website refreshing every few seconds. No phone buzzing with alerts.

There was something valuable about standing in a crowd with your neighbors and watching democracy happen one precinct at a time. Something worth remembering about seeing the people who disagreed with you standing only a few feet away, waiting for the same piece of chalk to move across the same board.

Maybe the chalkboard was primitive, but the gathering was citizenship.