Obama’s 106-year-old voter from Atlanta
November 5, 2008 at 8:32 am by Ken Edelstein in NewsAnn Louis Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old Atlantan whom President-elect Obama referred to in his victory speech, turns out to be quite a lady.
The Shelbyville, Tenn., native moved with her dentist husband to Atlanta in 1922 — when she was either 19 or 20. She knew W.E.B. Du Bois, John Hope Franklin and other 20th African-American intellectuals. She also was active in community activities, including a tutoring program at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Obama used the sweep of Cooper’s life to launch into a call-response evocation of his “Yes We Can” mantra:
And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
Leave a Reply