A daughter of the South reflects on Obama

Lately I have been trying to picture my paternal great-grandmother, America Williams, of whom all I know is her name, and who was no more than a generation removed from enslavement. 

Indeed, during the months and weeks leading up to this profound moment in time--the election of Barack Obama as the 44th American President--recollections of my childhood in Lake Providence, Louisiana have flashed through my mind at a furious pace, in a kaleidoscopic reel.

Repeatedly, I have been overcome with tears, and images of certain other members of my family, all long since "gone on to glory," as the parishioners would surely proclaim in the sanctuary of St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, where I spent countless hours, situated on a remote back-road in an area of East Carroll Parish called Tyrone. This was at a time when Jim Crow was dying a tortuously slow death, in the late 1960's and the 1970's. Segregation was still, well, real -- Brown v. Board of Education notwithstanding.

My beloved maternal grandmother, Rosie Leonard Goins, has featured prominently in my ruminations, as she did in my formative years. I can distinctly remember the traveling insurance man, who could not have been more than 30--easily half her age--calling her "Rosie" during his periodic premium collection visits to my grandparent's small shotgun house nestled on the Bayou Road, where the only thing that stood between us and the Mississippi River was an earthen levee. 

My young mind marveled at the injustice and incongruence of this, while she the elder would, in turn, just smile and call the young White man "Mr. Charlie" (or whatever his name was). I once asked "Ma Rosie" why he didn't have to respect his elders, and she told me to hush, that "that's just the way it is." 

Then there was my grandfather, Willie Goins, Sr., a foreman on the farm of a wealthy White landowner who allowed him to use his heavy equipment to work various rented farmland, allowing him to cultivate his own cotton crops. 

He was cool like Obama--even underneath the unforgiving sun on the seemingly endless red dirt rows.  But nothing would make him lose patience like when I would chop down more of his beloved cotton than the dreaded weeds. 

And, ironically, even after his tireless work afforded him the ability to purchase "The Place," a small 40-acre farm--his legacy for his "heirs"--he still could not vote.  Before now, I never really thought much about this; however, I have thought of it often this election season. 

I never knew all the details, but the long and short of it was that "Bi' Daddy" had apparently been involved in the transport of moonshine, "white lightening," and in the parlance of today, "caught a case." His youthful indiscretion, no doubt born of economic necessity, forever disenfranchised him--even though he was a deacon of the church, and one of the most respected Black men in our small community.

My parents, Bernice Goins Reed and Fred L. Reed, Sr., a school janitor and cook, respectively, would have been so tickled. "Muh-Daddy" even ran unsuccessfully for city alderman a few times, so he would most assuredly have been captivated by Obama's unlikely story. Being the collector and news junkie that he was, on November 5, he would most assuredly have been at the head of the line, down at Minsky's Drugstore, waiting for the first run of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. And he would have read every line, as he did every Sunday morning.

It goes without saying that neither my beloved eldest sister, Cheryl Lynn Reed, whose senseless murder is still unsolved after 24 years, nor my paternal grandmother, Beulah "Bi' Ma" Daniels, who both doted on me, would have been able to fathom even the possibility of a Black President. 

But who among us would have believed at the beginning of this epic campaign?  I mean really, except maybe the Obamas and Oprah? That, however, was B.B.--Before Barack, as filmmaker Spike Lee recently demarcated. 

So understandably, the spirit of my forebears--known and unknown--accompanied me as I cast my vote for the man who, I believe, has lived up to the meaning of his beautiful Swahili name, blessing, which he truly is. Truly.  

But it was especially for Bi' Daddy, who likely would not have been able to vote for America's first African American President, even had he lived to witness this divine time in this place--the country whose powerful name my great-grandmother America bore, even though she was no doubt more African than American.

Today, wonder of wonders, not only do we have Barack Obama. There is also Michelle Obama, his beautiful, slave-descended African American First Lady in-waiting, and their two exquisite brown-skinned daughters--Sasha and Malia--all of whom are set to move into the White House, that fabled presidential mansion built by enslaved Africans. And, for the first time in recent memory, if not ever, the First Family is to be an extended family, as Michelle's mother Marian Robinson--the First Grandmother--will also be a resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

How much has changed...

Now, at the last, I will continue to tell my four year-old daughter Khepera that there is nothing she cannot do. But for the very first time, in this the A. B. age, I will believe it--with absolute certainty. After Barack. 

Right about now, my Ma Rosie would probably tell me to show some respect, and call him Mr. President-Elect. And as usual, she would be absolutely right. Our Barry is now President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama. Indeed.

Still, as they say, there are miles to go...