For Older Blacks, Election Offers Fruits of Hard Journey

[bigtree]

Sunday, November 2, 2008; C01

Once or twice a week for the past month or so, Ruth Worthy, 91, has been going door-to-door in her Northeast D.C. neighborhood campaigning for Sen. Barack Obama.

She made the trek in her wheelchair or resting on the arm of her nurse.

"Dear, are you registered?" she would ask.

Worthy belongs to a generation of African Americans who have journeyed from some of the rawest and brutal eras of racism to the present, when they find themselves relishing the idea of a black man possibly becoming president.

For many blacks ages 90 and older, Tuesday will be one of the most historic events of their long lives. They lived through Jim Crow, the Depression, a world war, the horrors of Emmett Till and the promise of the civil rights movement. Now, they're watching Obama (D-Ill.) lead in the national presidential polls.

Be they women of relative privilege, such as Worthy, or those of working-class roots, many share the same awe at how far the world can come in a lifetime.

__ "Yes, dear, I guess I was a little defiant," she said with a chuckle.


read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/01/AR2008110101984_pf.html

[bigtree]

1. .

[csziggy]

2. Today we found out one of the elderly ladies in our area had died

She was 109 and would have been so thrilled to vote for a black man for President. Our entire team was depressed that she was only a few months short of being able to do it.

But several of us have had the great experience of helping elderly men and women in our area vote. They are so happy and are looking forward to the future and what it will hold for their children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.

[democrank]

3. Nominated out of respect for the hard journey.

~PEACE~