Obama's Inaugeration

January 20, 2009

To President-elect Barack Obama,

There were two people on my mind the day after America elected you, President-elect Barack Obama. Those two people were my five-year-old daughter, Leah, and a close friend of my family, a lady I knew as Grandma Durden.

I was raised in a town of about 800 people located 25 minutes north of Flint, Michigan. When I was growing up, there were only two African-American families in our surrounding area. The Durden and Traylor families went to my church. During the 2008 election, I learned that part of the reason my father chose to go to Columbiaville United Methodist Church was because those two families made up about a quarter of the church's membership. My father was a farm boy from Alpena, Michigan, who never met an African-American before he went to work for GM in the fifties. I can only be grateful for him choosing that church because the Durden family has had a huge impact on my life.

All of my grandparents were gone by the time I was born. I don't know how it came about, if it was planned or spontaneous, but I always thought of the matriarch of the Durden family as my grandma. Every Sunday, I could count on a huge, bear hug from Grandma Durden and Grandpa John. I can still see their faces beaming at me. With them, I felt a part. They didn't see the color of my skin and I didn't see theirs. They, who had been torn apart and prejudiced against, loved and accepted me. The Durdens, all of them, have been a part of my family since I can remember. I grew up thinking racism was a thing of the past, something terrible that had happened and was now just a chapter in the history books. Sadly, I learned that I was wrong.

I was going to school at the University of Michigan-Flint when the Rodney King riots took place. I remember driving down Saginaw Street in downtown Flint and can still see the pain and anger on the faces of the protestors. I desperately wanted to join them, but I was too afraid. For the first time in my life, I started to see that there was a color divide. It didn't matter what was in my heart. At that moment, all that mattered was that my skin was white. Suddenly, I felt like I was on the wrong side.

I finished my bachelor's degree at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Eventually, I ended up working as a communication specialist for the Michigan Senate. At that time, I was an independent working for Republican senators. I have since become a Democrat, but that is a story for another essay. I couldn't help but notice that there were very few African-American legislators or staff working in Lansing.

It was at that time that I started reading such literary works as Native Son, The Bluest Eye, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the list goes on and on. I read African-American literature almost exclusively for two years. Those books gave me a raw view of where race relations stood in this country. Not only that, but those authors showed me why we were in the place we were. It was like my eyes had been opened and it was very difficult to see what was being laid out before me.

For many years now, I have felt ashamed. Sometimes, I would walk past an African American and wonder what they thought of me. Did they think I was prejudice? Did they hate me? And I would think could I blame them if they did?

I told many people that I wasn't voting for you or campaigning for you because of the color of your skin. I was doing those things because you were the best candidate for the job. You simply had the best policy plans on the key issues that were important to me: the economy, health care, the Iraq War and the environment, not to mention your stance on campaign finance reform, the auto industry and the Great Lakes. I have never in my life been so engaged in an election. The feelings that struck me the night of November 4, as you took the stage as the first African American to be elected President of the United States, were feelings of joy and healing.

The healing, for me, came in many forms. I have felt as if the everyday people of this country have been resolutely ignored over the past several years. I can see a change in the people here in the Detroit area and your willingness to step forward is the catalyst for that change. I have hope again in the electoral process and I have never been more proud to say that I am an American.

I am especially hopeful that my daughter might grow up in a time when racism is nothing but a sad word in the dictionary. My only wish is that my Grandma Durden could be here to witness your inauguration. I know the morning after the election, as I drove to work elated and with tears streaming down my face, that I felt her presence. I know she is beaming today.