Amelia: Defender of the Vote

Amelia Boynton Robinson, “Queen Mother” to those close to her, was the perpetual defender of the Negro vote. She transitioned on August 26, 2015, eight days after her 111th birthday.

Amelia learned the importance of voting from her parents George and Annie Platts. Her father was a businessman in Savannah, Georgia. He owned a lumber company, built an eleven room house for his family – which still stands today – and owned one of the few automobiles on the Savannah roadway in the early 1900’s. He would have owned two automobiles, but Amelia’s mother did not want to learn to drive a car, so he bought her a horse and buggy to get around Savannah. read more

Selma Emotionally Moving

Selma, emotionally moving!

Fifty years later, Selma is as emotionally moving, as that Bloody Sunday many years ago. I was twelve years of age back then. I had survived a decade of the Jim Crow south on a farm in central Georgia. My family was a few years removed from the farm. Yet city life did not bring about much change in the way the ruling society related to us. read more

Obama connect dots

Obama connect dots. Standing at the apex of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, President Barack Obama connect  dots. He made the case for restoring the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This bridge, which bears the name of a Confederate General made the perfect backdrop for President Obama to connect these dots.

“This speech,” my 86 year-old mother called to say to me, “will be repeated for years to come by the children, just like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, ‘I have a dream’ speech.” read more