Obama’s Victory {ABC News}
I write this piece on the eve of my beautiful grandmother’s birthday. My grandmother, who tomorrow-God Willing- will turn 77 years young, still walks the streets of Harlem on her daily outings as vigorously as she did the day she migrated to the Big Apple from her hometown of Goldsboro, North Carolina more that 50 years ago. I thought of her as I watched Senator Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. accept his victory as the 44th President of these United Sates of America last night around the hour of 11:00. Addressing this nation with his new world order at task, he spoke of a woman named Ann Nixon Cooper; a 106 year old former homemaker and socialite from Atlanta who for the first time in her life was able to cast her vote for an African-American nominee. For more than a century on this earth, this extraordinary woman has witnessed America evolve before her eyes. I wonder if Mrs. Nixon Cooper or my grandmother ever thought, in their wildest dreams, that they would see a black man being prepared to take the helm of this country. I think of my maternal grandmother who passed way in 2004, the same year that Barack Obama was just making his mark in the national political arena by giving maybe the most important speech of his career at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. I think of my mother, as all she could say was “Oh My Goodness,” in between her sobs of joy as she watched the nation erupt in jubilee on her television. I think of my father, who was an award-winning journalist at the Village Voice during the 1980’s, when young black people were being killed at an alarming rate by a bigoted NYPD and the devastating crack epidemic. I think of my grandfather, who fell limp across his bed crying when he received the news that Malcolm X was killed at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.
