"I felt like my name finally meant something," said O'Neal, now 75.

O'Neal voted for John F. Kennedy then and plans to vote for John F. Kerry this Tuesday, as Democratic Party loyalty remains fierce both him and other elderly African American residents here at Sojourner Truth Manor, a retirement home in North Oakland. Many residents grew up in the Jim Crow South and said they'd never even heard about elections or voting until they came to California in the 1950s and 1960s.

"If we saw it (voting) back then, we didn't know what it was," said O'Neal. "I realized we were denied a whole lot of things, but at the time we didn't know any better."

At an afternoon fish fry to raise money for their tenants' association, residents of this federally-subsidized retirement home spoke with a mix of sadness and pride about voting, not voting and the journey from political exclusion to full participation.

Eighty-five-year-old Mattie Lawyer has bitter memories of a truncated education and a total unawareness of politics. She grew up on a cotton plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, and was able to attend school only three months a year. Lawyer heard nothing of voting until after she moved to Chicago in 1943.

"My neighbor asked me if I'd registered, and I didn't even know what she was talking about," Lawyer said.

Lawyer cast her first vote for Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 and said she's voted in every election and Democratic primary since. "It felt good to do something I wasn't allowed to do," she said, "it meant I had rights."

At the time, Lawyer said voters in Chicago's polling booths could pull one lever for the Democratic party or another for the Republicans. The technology has changed somewhat since then, but Lawyer's approach to choosing candidates has not. She said she tells all her children and grandchildren to vote Democratic.

"I've never liked what the Republicans have stood for," she said. "Whenever things change for the worse, it's always because of a Republican."

This Election Day, Sojourner Truth Manor will have polling stations set up inside the lobbies of two of its buildings, so getting to the polls will be no more difficult than going downstairs. One of the residents planning to vote there is 63-year-old Emile Davis, who grew up in Collinston, Lousiana. He remembers the climate for fear and intimidation that pervaded his hometown.

"You were supposed to do what you're told and that was that," said Davis, who cast his first ballot in 1968, after he moved to Oakland. "You could get beat with an axe handle just for talking about voting."

Henrietta Coleman remembers fearing for her parents' lives when they first voted in 1968 in her hometown of McComb, Mississippi. "I remember I talked to my father the night before, and how proud he was to go to the poll."

Coleman, 70, said the anxiety didn't go away even after her parents cast their votes. "They worried someone was going to come harm them in the night," she said. "They were happy to be able to vote, but they were afraid of retaliation too."

It's a memory Coleman takes with her to the polls. "Every time I'm able to vote for what I believe in, I appreciate it even more," she said, stuffing take-out containers with fried catfish and heaps of coleslaw for the fundraiser. "I'm a free person out here."

Nearly all the residents at Sojourner Truth who grew up in the segregated South said they now vote in every election. But 71-year-old Mary Watts didn't try voting until 2000, even though she'd been living in California for decades. Watts said she avoided the polls because she never believed her vote would actually count.

Then she voted for Gore in 2000 and felt like her fears were vindicated.

"That election upset me so bad, it made me feel terrible," she said. "A lot of people feel like their votes don't count. I mean, do my vote really count?"

Discouraged but not hopeless, Watts said she'll give it another shot today, if only to set things right.

"I pray to God up above that Bush don't get back in there," she said.