The historic participation of more than 4.25 million citizens in the 2008 November elections in North Carolina, as opposed to only 3.5 million in 2004, is a testament to the hard work of the many people associated with the NAACP's Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) Coalition. Blacks and whites worked together and tirelessly to increase voter turnout by more than 20 percent from four years ago. There were more than 1 million African-Americans voting for change, making up more than 46 percent of President-elect Barack Obama's winning total of more than 2.2 million.

The NAACP and our HKonJ partners' efforts to involve hundreds of thousands of new voters in the democratic process were greatly aided by the new one-stop early voting that we helped get passed in the 2007 -- one of the 14 Points on our People's Agenda. More than 691,000 African-Americans voted early, which is 51 percent of the 1.32 million black registered voters.

Assuming the vote on election day of 1.7 million included just 20 percent black voters, then we can infer that more than 1 million African-Americans voted, a record of 74 percent of African-American registered voters cast their ballots, as compared to 59 percent in 2004. We estimate that 94 percent of the voting-age population of African-Americans is now registered as compared to 89 percent for all races. Most important for the future of a government of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people in North Carolina -- out of the 967,800 new registrants in 2008, 31 percent were African-Americans and 32 percent were under age 25.

President-elect Obama's victory speech stressed that his election -- although historic and a cause of great celebration throughout the African-American community and in the homes and churches of all people of good will -- was not the change our country desperately requires. This historic election only gave us the opportunity to give change a chance.

We write directly to you, asking for your pledge to the powerful Black-White-Brown Coalition we represent that you will Give Change a Chance. We are all challenged by the mandate for change on Nov. 4. Will we make the most of this opportunity to give change a chance? Will we do that, not only in Washington, D.C., but in our state and county governments where so much power for good or evil exists?

We note that many candidates for county and state offices proudly said on African-American media that they were NAACP members and that they supported our 14-point agenda. They asked directly for the votes of the 1 million black voters. And our people responded dramatically. Now comes your opportunity to give change a chance. Will you ensure that at all levels of leadership and decision-making in your new administrations that African-Americans are there? Anything less does not give change a chance.

Some cynics see President-elect Obama's historic election as just window dressing. It does not represent a fundamental shift in political perspective, they say. We will go back to the same old tired politics, they say. Down-ballot politicians will ride Obama's coattails to victory, they say, but once in office they will turn their backs on us again. They won't give change a chance. It will be same old, same old. We cannot let this happen.

We call on each of you to pledge with the NAACP and our Historic Thousands on Jones Street Partners to give change a chance. We call on African-American and progressive leadership throughout the state to demand an answer from each newly elected state and county official to this question: Will you give change a chance?