A New President: 'It is very hard – very hard to believe' (Globe and Mail)
From The Globe and Mail:
SINCLAIR STEWART
From The Globe and Mail
November 5, 2008
HARLEM, NEW YORK — Edward Castleberry slouches in his wheelchair and gently shakes his head, struggling to come to grips with history's improbable course.
Almost six decades ago, in 1952, he braved the bigotry of his native Birmingham, Ala., ignoring the threat of violence to cast his first vote in a U.S. presidential election. He can still recall walking to the ballot booth in the 16th Street Baptist Church, the same building where a racially motivated bombing later killed four young girls, emblemizing the country's civil-rights struggle.
“We had a hard time voting down there,” acknowledged Mr. Castleberry, 80, a former radio disc jockey who played host to shows in Philadelphia, Miami and Cincinnati before moving to New York 20 years ago. “We had our own section, our own schools.”
Yesterday, as he thumbed through a scrapbook in his Spartan room at the Greater Harlem Nursing Home, displaying photographs of himself with Lionel Richie, Billie Dee Williams, Sidney Poitier and other artists, he still seemed incredulous at the notion that America could elect Barack Obama, a black man. And that he would be alive to witness it.
“It is very hard – very hard to believe,” he said. “I thought I'd never see it. And if I did, it would be years off.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081105.welectionharlem05/BNStory/usElection2008
SINCLAIR STEWART
From The Globe and Mail
November 5, 2008
HARLEM, NEW YORK — Edward Castleberry slouches in his wheelchair and gently shakes his head, struggling to come to grips with history's improbable course.
Almost six decades ago, in 1952, he braved the bigotry of his native Birmingham, Ala., ignoring the threat of violence to cast his first vote in a U.S. presidential election. He can still recall walking to the ballot booth in the 16th Street Baptist Church, the same building where a racially motivated bombing later killed four young girls, emblemizing the country's civil-rights struggle.
“We had a hard time voting down there,” acknowledged Mr. Castleberry, 80, a former radio disc jockey who played host to shows in Philadelphia, Miami and Cincinnati before moving to New York 20 years ago. “We had our own section, our own schools.”
Yesterday, as he thumbed through a scrapbook in his Spartan room at the Greater Harlem Nursing Home, displaying photographs of himself with Lionel Richie, Billie Dee Williams, Sidney Poitier and other artists, he still seemed incredulous at the notion that America could elect Barack Obama, a black man. And that he would be alive to witness it.
“It is very hard – very hard to believe,” he said. “I thought I'd never see it. And if I did, it would be years off.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081105.welectionharlem05/BNStory/usElection2008
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