Daily Independent (Lagos)
Olumide Iyanda
8 November 2008
column
One of the many things that stuck out in Barack Obama's acceptance speech after he won the U.S. election on Tuesday was his reference to Ann Louise Nixon Cooper who voted in Atlanta, Georgia.
According to the president-elect: "This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing-Ann Nixon Cooper Is 106 Years Old
"She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons-because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin.
"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."
Yes, Cooper has lived an active life. Born on January 9, 1902 in Shelbyville, Tennessee, by 1922, she married Albert Berry Cooper, a young dentist in Nashville, Tennessee. The pair soon moved to Atlanta, where the husband opened a dental practice and his wife raised their four children.
A homemaker for the majority of her life, except for a brief stint as a policy writer for Atlanta Life Insurance, Cooper has served on a countless number of boards and committees in Atlanta.
She stood up to vote on Tuesday and got the biggest celebrity endorsement in the world for her effort. She will sure die a happy woman.
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