Letter to the Obama Campaign

This is a letter I wrote for the Obama campaign. Hope you enjoy!

No personal story. A communal story. I say communal because I know this is a common feat among so many. Seventy-nine years ago a young African-American boy told his parents he wanted to learn to read. He was adamant about learning, he felt it was his human right. The school for "negros" which was in his neighborhood, did not have the resources to supply the teachers with adequately material to learn. So everyday this young boy would walk seven miles down a dirt road (rain or shine) to attend an "integrated" white school. He heard every word of profanity that could be yelled at a young black male...but he persisted. He persisted because he wanted an education. One consequence of his quest was that he began to hate white people (I call this a consequence because he hated the person/race, and not the acts and mentality). Later he grew up and met a woman who was from the West Indies. She was a woman of mixed heritage. Her last name, McClammy, she told him was not a slave name, but the result of a slave master who had fallen in love with a slave women, freed her, married her, freed all of his slaves and never again owned another human being. But he indeed informed her that she owned his heart. That former slave master and former slave woman were her great-great grandparents. Through her love for people and human beings she taught this bitter, learned, scholar how to accept people and reject mentalities. He grew to understand her ways and understand people. Two stories of two people that were different yet the same. And a tale of how LOVE conquered pride, stupidity and hatred. These people were my paternal grandparents. Today as a "phenotypical" African-American woman who is ethnically West Indian, Scottish, African American and Choctaw I understand the measure of love and of wisdom. I understand how those two together bring about change. Change one can believe in and change one can benefit from. I am the first in my immediate family to graduate college and the first to be in a doctoral program getting my PhD. I am like my grandfather, persistent and eager to learn. I am like my grandmother loving and understanding. And I know it is the conglomerate of those together that has made me wise. That is what I recognize in you Senator Obama. I recognize it in you far beyond me and that is why I know you are the change the country needs. You are the hope the people need. And you are the light that the world sees in this dark and tumultuous time of our nation! May God be with you and all of us as we stand behind you. YES WE CAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!