This image is of Peggy (R), then a 19 year-old SNCC member, next to future civil rights icon, Dr. Dorothy Cotton (L), after a 1962 church burning in Georgia—the state that Peggy's great-great grandparents, William & Ellen Craft, famously escaped from slavery nearly 115 years earlier...
MY
WEEKLY
WORD
8.22.20
Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
Dr. Dorothy Cotton
In honor of the 100th Anniversary of the passage of the U.S. Constitution's Nineteenth Amendment that gave women the vote, my piece this week is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Ellen, as well as to my daughter, Shanti and to my two granddaughters, Simone & Kaylynn...
Simone
The night of 2008 she rang me
Oh, Nana, he DID it, he did it! He won!! He won!!!
In her voice I heard her step into our continuum
The family tradition:
Vote.
Struggle.
Protest.
Hope.
We shared our tears of joy: The first Black President!!!
My heart soared. She gets it! She gets it!! Lord almighty, she gets it!!!
We cried together holding our phones. Lamenting she could not vote until the next year.
Celebrating an historical first in her young life
And also in mine.
My oldest granddaughter Simone, gave me her bond on that 2008 night...
She is now a mother, is surging forth, contributing, voting, doing, standing
​
The night of 2016, she rang me.
Oh, Nana they couldn’t have! No, they didn’t!! Oh, noooooooo!!!
It can’t be true.
It was my youngest granddaughter Kayelynn, pleading.
He can’t be our president. How could he have won?
Don’t they know who and what he stands for?
She was a 10th grader, also then too young to vote
But not too young to care.
She’s in college now, raising high the torch…declaring her truths.
My grand-girls!
Both in their twenties now. Are Obama apprentices. My heart is full.
It is their era.
They vote. They speak out. They urge their friends. They text. They Instagram.
They get it. They are here. They will fight. They will make a difference.
They wear black masques today, in honor of, because of, in spite of.
To stand tall.
Their historical suffragette sisters wore white dresses in honor of, because of, in spite of.
To stand tall.
A resurgence is re-surging …..it is a national re-suffering…an existential re-awakening...
100 years later.
We who believe in freedom cannot rest!
© 2020 Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely. All rights reserved.
Kayelynn
OBAMA-ESQUE: MY GRANDDAUGHTERS
by Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely