Dear Grandma,
You came from a whole different era so I know you never saw this one coming. For the first time in history,we may have a black president in the U.S! I know that you are still around,even though you've been gone for 10 years now. Your commanding prescence can still be felt by both your daughter & granddaughter. Grandma,I know you would have been elated by the current events. The scrapbook that you kept of every new milestone in the civil rights struggle is still around. Newspaper clippings of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, & other great civil rights innovators have not withered with age. The testimony of progress in race relations has not faded away into memory. All the fruits of that struggle may finally be reaped by Barack Obama tonight!
I voted Democratic,Grandma!That was a promise that I am glad you made me keep. For that is the party that has elevated a black man to the level where he could run for president.Although the Republican party has made some strides in race relations, it is still not a diverse party. I think you knew that it might be that way for some time. So, I went with the family tradition. Who knew that by voting as a democrat I could help usher in the first black president ever? You just wanted me to vote to make sure that the countless blacks that died for that right did not do so in vain.
You were raised in one of the most racist states in America. In Mississippi, you couldn't roam freely because of segregation. Not only that but you faced the prospect of either you or your loved ones getting lynched by the Ku Klux Klan! That is why you left & came to California. I am certain that it would make you feel overjoyed to learn that racism has lessened to some degree in America. Even in states like Mississippi,things have improved. From the Reconstruction era to the Civil Rights period, blacks have fought to have the same rights as whites. If Barack Obama does win, that may finally become a reality. Hopefully, you are witnessing these events from somewhere in Heaven. If you are, I know that you are happy to see just how far we have come as African-Americans!
