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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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On Viola Walker's 103rd birthday, a dream of an election
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| Contributor | RBH |
| Last Edited | RBH Apr 22, 2008 11:17am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Philadelphia Inquirer |
| News Date | Tuesday, April 22, 2008 05:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | VIOLA WALKER says she hasn't missed voting in a presidential election since Calvin Coolidge ran in 1924.
It is one of the privileges of the "better life" that she and her late husband came to Philadelphia for 81 years ago. Back when she was growing up in Rocky Mount, N.C., even the U.S. Constitution couldn't guarantee black citizens the right to vote.
When the Constitution finally granted voting rights to women in 1920, she knew that didn't include her. That's why Election Days mean so much to her.
But Viola Walker never dreamed she'd live to see an Election Day like today.
She never imagined that on her 103rd birthday she'd have a choice between a woman and a black man.
"No, no, never," she told me yesterday. "I never imagined I'd see something like this. This is what we prayed for all those years.
"But I never thought I'd live this long. I never thought I'd live to my 80s, even."
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She voted for Barack Obama by absentee ballot. But he was probably the only candidate who could have kept her from voting for Hillary Clinton.
"I came up right in the midst of women voting for the first time," she said. "I was proud of that. I thought God had heard and answered our prayers.
"Of course women have a big voice in politics now. It doesn't matter whether you're a woman or what color you are today.
"Women today can take jobs that men can't even apply for." |
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