Dear Great-grand father Jim and Great-grand mother Annie,
The world will change so dramatically in the next 24 hours that I felt compelled to share this moment with you. Why you? Because you and your legacy are the reason I am here today and able to witness this history on your behalf.
Today, in the year of the bicentennial birth of President Abraham Lincoln, this nation honors a Black man, Martin Luther King, Jr., for his contributions to social progress, and tomorrow will swear in its first African-American President. This is an extraordinary event. Two hundred years after the Constitution counted you as three-fifths of a white person, one hundred and forty-three years after that same Constitution was amended to eliminate slavery, the son of a white Kansas woman and black African man will be the face of the United States to the world for the next four years.
President Lincoln, with his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation set you both free from slavery, but as you soon discovered, this freedom did not mean automatic social acceptance or full participation in the “American dream.” In fact, after the Civil War, things returned back to the way they were for you. And while neither one of you could read or write, you ensured that your children could because you saw it as a way to make the promised American dream happen for them. And I wanted to tell you that I think your children and their heirs have made you proud.
Members of your family have participated in and organized voting and civil rights campaigns since the election of Theodore Roosevelt. In 1912, two of our family members paid with their lives for helping organize voter registration campaigns in Alabama. In 1943, one of your grandsons was among the first of those to integrate the U. S. Marine Corps during World War II. His wife would later be instrumental in pushing the Maryland Congressional delegation to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Because of the goals you laid out for our family more than four generations ago, this direct descendant of slaves, could vote for a Black man, Barack Obama, for President of the United States – not because of his skin color, but because he was the best man for the job. And I was not alone. More people voted for this man than double the entire population of the United States in 1863, the year you were freed. That is impressive.
As a people, as a nation and as a family, we’ve come a long way and still have a long way to go. But I now know that the Dream is reachable for all of us. And that one day, one or all of my three grandchildren (your great-great-great grandchildren) could be addressed as Mister or Madam President if they work hard. I can tell them that now and for the first time know that it is true – that it can happen.
The possibilities are endless. The time is now. The dream endures because a change has come to America – a change your family was part of.
With more love and gratitude than you’ll ever know,
Your great-grandson,
Bill