History in the making

My grandparents, who yesterday went to the polls and voted for
Barack Obama, grew up in a time and place that was so different from now. It's kind of amazing to look at my grandparents.

My grandfather was raised by an incredibly racist man. My great-
grandfather used to make people turn off the tv if a black person
came on the screen.

My grandmother is related to Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of
the Ku Klux Klan.

My grandparents both grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. They were
there during the Civil Rights Movement, they witnessed the
demonstrations.

My mother saw with her own eyes black people sprayed with fire hoses.

As a toddler my mother had a black nanny (Flora) who when she would
take my mom out for the day would have to somehow arrange to grab
the last seat of the "white section" for my mother and her brother
to sit on, and the first seat of the "black section" so that Flora
could sit with her hands on the kids' shoulders and pray that no one harassed her because she was so scared of something happening to the kids "because of her."

My grandparents took Flora to Florida one year and they had to get
their lunch to go so that they all could sit outside by the car with Flora to eat since all the restaurants were "whites only."

My mother grew up in segregated schools and it wasn't until her
senior of high school that her high school in Atlanta was
desegregated and ONE black boy came to her high school. One.

My 84 year old grandfather, son of a notorious racist, and my 80
year old grandmother, relative of the founder of Ku Klux Klan, both
born and raised in the deep Confederate South, voted for the first
black President of the United States of America and they did it with joy!