One More Bright Light in this Election

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There’s one other comment about this election (well, for now; I might have more to say later…actually, I probably will) that I feel compelled to make. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I believe Barack Obama to be unqualified to hold the office of president, nor of the fact that I consider many of his ideas dangerous to our society. Knowing these things, I never considered supporting him for president.

But there’s one thing that I want to relate, a matter of joy, not at the election of this particular African-American, but at the election of a black man to the presidency, and it’s this: we have, in our congregation, a dear little saint of the Lord whom we refer to as “Miss Annie”. To know this lady is to love her. She has lived in different parts of this country, and known the Lord for a long time. Oh…”Miss Annie” is African-American. I’ve wondered many times what she has lived through in her 70 or so years, what kind of racial discrimination she has endured, what rude, racist comments she’s heard. I’m going to ask her one day, but I’m sure she’s seen a lot in her lifetime. She was nearing her adult years when Brown v. Board of Education was decided; she was a beautiful young lady when Dr. King stood on the Mall in Washington and spoke of his dream. I wonder if she thought it was realistic, or if it was a pipe dream. My educated guess is that she never thought she’d live to see the day when this country would elect a black man president. But now, she has.

And so, while I wish that it were a different black man, with different values and plans for our country, I must also say that as her pastor, I am very happy for “Miss Annie” today, and for that matter, for all the “Miss Annies” out there who’ve lived through racial discrimination and segregation and the like. I’m glad that she’s lived to see this.

And I hope that she’ll live to see every other vestige of racial prejudice eradicated from this country.

2 Comments

  1. Graham on November 6, 2008 at 6:30 pm

    I was just thinking about this- slavery was abolished 1860s (I think), so anyone born before 1850ish would have known about slavery first hand (perhaps even been a slave, or on the other side, benefitting from it).

    Such a person could have been around when Miss Annie was a little girl.

    It simply struck me that people of her generation might have- as children- known elderly people who had been slaves.

  2. Byron on November 7, 2008 at 5:13 pm

    Child slaves, yes, I think that that’s possible, though they’d have been very old when she was born. My guess is that she knew plenty of the CHILDREN of slaves, but few/none themselves.

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