Lucy Mae
I dedicate this post to my mother. Lucy Mae was born the day the stock market crashed in 1929. She still recalls growing up in the segregated south quite vividly. She remembers going to segregated schools and having to step off the sidewalk when a white person would be coming down the sidewalk. Her grandmother raised her and her cousins. She reinforced over the years, that if Lucy Mae could get through school and college she would make something of herself. And my mother was relentless. She got funds from church, she cleaned houses, and she worked until she graduated from college. She would go on to be a nurse, a special ed teacher, a school counselor, and administrator. All the while she would endure set backs and prejudice, that are still too painful and many to recount here, but with all of that, she continued to instill us with the belief that if we went to school and college, we would have a better life. We too could succeed.
The night before the election, I called her. I said “Mama we are going to be voting for history in the morning.” She said she would be there bright and early on the 4th . She walked right up the street to the Catholic School in our neighborhood. I wish I could have been there to see her vote. I wish I could have seen that smile on her face and her proclaim “God is Good, all the time!!!” And finally to see pump her hand in the air for victory. Victory for all of us is to see this day, when we all stood up and said it is time for us to have HOPE again.
As I said last night, it is a great great day!!! Lucy Mae got to vote for History!! I am so happy my mother, my dad, and my kids could see this History.
God Bless America for having the courage to change direction and retake control of her own destiny.