My favorite cousin's widow sent this to me yesterday

[malaise]

I've taken out the names but think it is a great story of why she cried on Tuesday night.

O-B-A-M-A

As President-elect Obama finished speaking last night, I began to cry – and cry – for about fifteen minutes. I was flooded with memories from 1962-64, 45 years ago, when my late husband X and I were living in Harlem at 143rd & Broadway, and pursuing grad studies at Columbia and Union Seminary. We had the opportunity to be part of the Civil Rights Movement with all its positive energy. As I’ve shared with my sons this week, those days were truly a highlight of our life – what a way to start a marriage!

Many, many people gave so very much more than we did for civil rights, including their lives. My mind goes back to all those who died – men and women, black and white, students and little girls in Sunday School. I want to share, especially with the younger generation, just a couple of personal memories of the journey – a wee bit of our family history.

There was a vast discrepancy between the amount spent on education in the white suburbs and in black Harlem. We were able to join in the movement to close the schools of Harlem for a day and educate children in black history and literature in church and community halls. I gave myself a crash course in black literature so I could teach it.

X was already an ordained minister of the Moravian Church and, to help pay for our school fees, was serving a Moravian Church in Harlem. I moved about Harlem as a white woman & had no negative experiences. I remember the exciting evening when we listened to Malcolm X address a huge crowd in the centre of Harlem. And I remember the inspiration of hearing Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak at a huge, packed church in Harlem, and hearing King’s father, Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. speak at the wealthy Riverside Church.

I remember going to Bethlehem, Pa for a huge Youth Congress that included hundreds of youth from the churches in North Carolina. Just seeing X in his clergy collar and me as his wife (new bride at that time) was a huge education for them. They even told us that blacks and whites can’t marry! We later prepared literature to send to all the clergy of the Moravian Church in America, asking them to involve their congregations in discussing civil rights issues.

In 1963-64, the Civil Rights Act was before Congress. One of the biggest events for us was the vigil held by seminary students in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. For 24 hours a day over many months, a group of three students -- Protestant, Catholic and Jewish -- stood beside a huge sign with a message of equality, until the Civil Rights Act was passed. I drove to Washington from New York with students from the Jewish Seminary located near Columbia U. We slept on the floor in church halls and were signed up for 3 hour vigils. My first vigil began at 3am on a chilly February night and I was driven with Catholic and Jewish seminarians to stand across from the Lincoln Memorial.

It was an awe-inspiring experience, marred by two events. We’d been warned that the American Nazi party had their own huge sign & a Nazi ‘guard’ about 100 yards from us. We were also warned that the guard would come and harangue us and that we should not attempt to reason with him. That happened at about 5 am and, as that Nazi approached us in full regalia, I found myself trembling so badly that I thought I would collapse. He shouted his racist ideas about blacks and Jews, and demanded to know where the black guy was on our vigil (many vigils were able to include a black person.)

My replacement ‘Protestant’ student didn’t arrive at 6am, due to a planning glitch, so I had to do a double vigil. As dawn was breaking after 7am, a battered truck drove around the circle honking to get our attention. As it drove very slowly past us, two white men shouted curses at us, and the man on the passenger side was pointing a gun at us.

I have immense admiration for the bravery of the Obamas. In the 60’s, the gun was used so readily by some of those who opposed the Democrats and equality – assassinating John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in a few short years.

These tiny vignettes explain some of my tears last night – Martin Luther King’s dream is being fulfilled.
------------------
She's a Canuck and he was a great Jamaican. He never let his religious views affect our friendship.