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by http://www.wsbtv.com/politics/17909568/detail.html
ATLANTA -- Tuesday night, President-elect Barack Obama shared the story of an Atlanta woman. Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old. Senator Obama called her just minutes before his first speech as President-elect.
Ninety minutes before he walked into history, President-elect Obama was on the phone to Atlanta. Cooper was watching election coverage. She’d voted early for Sen. Obama and he was calling her to say thank you.
VIDEO: 106-Year-Old Atlanta Woman Receives Call From Obama
“You don’t have to call me back, but I just wanted you to know I’m going to take your advice and keep smiling,” said Obama on Cooper’s answering machine.
Minutes later, with millions of others around the world, Cooper watched the acceptance speech and heard the 44th President speaking her name.
“Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old. She was born just a generation past slavery -- when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons, because she was a woman and because of the color or her skin,” Obama said Tuesday night during his speech. “And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen in her century in America – the heartache and the hope. The struggle and the progress.”
Born on a Tennessee farm, she lived all her adult life in Atlanta. She was married for 67 years to a dentist. She was part of the elite black Atlanta social scene, entertaining the King family and others. But Tuesday was the first time a President has invoked her name.
“I knew it was coming so it was just something I looked forward to and I sat and watched,” said Cooper.
She has outlived her husband and all but one of her four children. She has lived the heartache of America’s sometimes painful history.
“One day, things are going to straighten up and there won’t be anymore black and white,” said Cooper.
She said it never crossed her mind that she would live to see a black man elected president.
“The races are coming together more now than ever, more than I ever knew and thought about,” said Cooper.
It’s a good bet that Cooper will be invited to the inauguration in Washington. Channel 2’s Diana Davis asked her if she wanted to go and she said, ‘No thanks.’ She said she would rather stay right here at home.
