Change
Change.
I went to the Smithsonian today to view Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968. The images spoke louder than any words I’d ever heard, seen or wrote. The words captured love and hate in a bottle and closed me up in it. Those feelings were all around me. All I could breathe in or out. Love and hate.
As I turned the corner I was met by the smile and greeting of a Black woman who had lived through 1956 – 1968 in a world I can but had to imagine. She wore a blue hat with the letters U S A across the front. Still proud of her nation despite the atrocities that it had inflicted upon its children that looked just like her. This woman who had seen American presidents shy away from Black faces would in hours see the first African American to become President of the United States.
Change.
In February 2008 my grandmother cast an absentee ballot in the presidential primary race in Ohio. She for the first, and what would be her last time, cast a vote for a woman to lead the Democratic campaign ticket and with good fortune serve as the President of the United States. When my grandmother was a little girl the notion that a woman could president of this land was foreign. My grandmother died before the March primary in Ohio. She didn’t live to see her candidate win the state.
Change.
In November 2008 my grandfather proudly cast his ballot in the general election for President of the United States for a Black man. My grandfather was born in 1921 in a small town in Alabama. He served in the United States military. He fought in a war. He faced discrimination. He never imagined in his lifetime that one day he would have the opportunity to cast a vote for Black man as President of the United States as the nominee from a major political party. On a Wednesday morning in November 2008 my grandfather woke up to news reports that the candidate that he voted for won. The headline of the local newspaper exclaimed that a Black man was elected president.
My grandfather died in December. While he lived to see the election he wouldn’t have the opportunity on Earth to see his supported candidate stand on the steps of the United States Capitol and be sworn into office.
Change.
I am filled with gratitude and unlimited hope for the things that I will still yet see in my lifetime.
I went to the Smithsonian today to view Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968. The images spoke louder than any words I’d ever heard, seen or wrote. The words captured love and hate in a bottle and closed me up in it. Those feelings were all around me. All I could breathe in or out. Love and hate.
As I turned the corner I was met by the smile and greeting of a Black woman who had lived through 1956 – 1968 in a world I can but had to imagine. She wore a blue hat with the letters U S A across the front. Still proud of her nation despite the atrocities that it had inflicted upon its children that looked just like her. This woman who had seen American presidents shy away from Black faces would in hours see the first African American to become President of the United States.
Change.
In February 2008 my grandmother cast an absentee ballot in the presidential primary race in Ohio. She for the first, and what would be her last time, cast a vote for a woman to lead the Democratic campaign ticket and with good fortune serve as the President of the United States. When my grandmother was a little girl the notion that a woman could president of this land was foreign. My grandmother died before the March primary in Ohio. She didn’t live to see her candidate win the state.
Change.
In November 2008 my grandfather proudly cast his ballot in the general election for President of the United States for a Black man. My grandfather was born in 1921 in a small town in Alabama. He served in the United States military. He fought in a war. He faced discrimination. He never imagined in his lifetime that one day he would have the opportunity to cast a vote for Black man as President of the United States as the nominee from a major political party. On a Wednesday morning in November 2008 my grandfather woke up to news reports that the candidate that he voted for won. The headline of the local newspaper exclaimed that a Black man was elected president.
My grandfather died in December. While he lived to see the election he wouldn’t have the opportunity on Earth to see his supported candidate stand on the steps of the United States Capitol and be sworn into office.
Change.
I am filled with gratitude and unlimited hope for the things that I will still yet see in my lifetime.
posted by ClayStarr at 3:25 AM
<< Home