A college student came dressed as a snowman to bring attention to climate change.
Bright orange T-shirts urged an end to genocide in Darfur. Young women passed out pamphlets advocating for children.
Sunday evening, hundreds of politically active people were filing into the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center for a Barack Obama rally. The place was crawling with journalists.
What better place to make a point?
The rally — a whooping, sign-waving, head-nodding event — set off the final week of Democratic primary action in South Carolina.
Outside the convention center, it was cold and clear. People lined up for more than a block to get inside, some still wearing their Sunday best.
A group in back started chanting: “O-bam-a! O-bam-a! O-bam-a!”....
Venus Montgomery of Sumter waited near an entrance with an elderly friend while an eager campaign worker found them seats. Montgomery breathed deeply.
“Part of history,” she said.
A homemade banner on one wall urged people to text a message to volunteer with the campaign....
Sixteen-year-old Titus Middleton paid his barber $15 to shave a customized message in his hair: Obama 08. “It’s a fun thing,” he said.
“Even when the hair grows back, I’m going to get it redone.”
A little girl sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Then, at 6:26 p.m., the U.S. senator from Illinois entered the room wearing a dark suit and white shirt with a blue striped tie. Cell phones shot into the air, snapping photos.
For the next hour, he kept the crowd enthralled. He quoted Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. He talked about the issues of the day.
Change. Trust. Hope.
At the end, they played Stevie Wonder: “Ooooh, baby, here I am — signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours.” People danced.
Austin Roper of Charlotte summed it up: “Very inspiring, very believable.
“And attempting to include everybody — old, young, black, white.”
As a young man, Roper said, he was active in civil rights and Vietnam. “This is sort of that same feeling,” he said.
His wife, Louise, swept by.
“I shook his hand,” she said, beaming. “I did. I did.”
http://www.thestate.com/presidential-politics/story/291852.html