BY DONNELL COLLINS
Like several passengers on the train, Wilma Taylor of Chicago sports her Obama gear as we head to Washington, D.C. for the inauguraton. Taylor said that when she was a little girl growing up in Arkansas (born in 1953) and picking cotton, she would say, "I will be glad when we get a black president so we can stop picking cotton."
We are currently sitting in Pittsburgh -- about four hours behind the scheduled arrival to D.C. I'm fine with that. I have a rolling office with plenty of great people who have plenty of great stories to tell about what this event means to them. Most of them I can relate to.
I, too, was born in the South and migrated from New Albany, Miss. north by train with my mom and younger sister on the famous Memphis to Chicago line. Like many black families back in the day, my father had already come "up north" and found work on a construction crew in Chicago.
My father introduced me to politics early in life by talking about the Eisenhower administration and how he almost starved us down in Mississippi. At the time I didn't realize he didn't know President Eisenhower personally.
By 1960, we were living in Aurora and Dad would tell me how there was so many jobs you could quit one and walk across the street and get another one. His day would start at the Van Straten Chemical Co. in North Aurora and end cutting lawns on the west end of Downer or Garfield. He would work at the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store and wash cars by hand on weekends.
My Dad passed away a few years ago. I only saw him cry once in my life. It was during the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King. I don't know what he would say today about the election of Barack Obama, but I imagine that he would just cry.
The tears would not be weak tears. They would be strong tears representing a personal struggle, a united civil rights front that evolved into what we will witness on Tuesday.
Donnell Collins, a Kane County Board member from Aurora, is a freelance photographer for The Beacon News.
The comment of Ms. Taylor reminds me of the recent passing of my mother, who with great blessing, did live to see a black man elected to the presidency of the United States. My mother was 89 years old, 15 days shy of her 90th birthday. Shortly before her transition I was visiting with her in the hospital as she was working to recover from a stroke and dealing with the consequences of the stroke, speech impairment, paralysis, physical trauma, pain etc. she made a point of making sure that I understood that I was to get her enough campaign buttons and hats for her and the grandchildren so that she and they could be a part of the historic event.
The world she was from spoke so loudly for me during that conversation with her and speaks to just how much it meant to her.
I dedicate this comment to her memory and to our country as we go forward.