106-year-old Atlanta woman basks in Obama tribute

[Ichingcarpenter]

ATLANTA – At age 106, Ann Nixon Cooper doesn't usually stay awake past midnight.
But on Election Night she had special reason to do so: She was waiting for Barack
Obama to mention her name.

Cooper, one of the oldest voters for the nation's first black president,
had been tipped off by the Obama campaign that she would be mentioned
in his acceptance speech. Toward the end, she got her moment.
"I was waiting for it," said Cooper. "I had heard that they would be calling my name at least."



She had dinner with Bobby Kennedy. Nat King Cole came to her parties. Martin Luther King sent her a telegram when her husband died and she has photographs of herself with his late wife Coretta on her sideboard.

In the early hours of yesterday morning, at the age of 106, she beat her personal best - Barack Obama singled out Ann Nixon Cooper for praise in his acceptance speech to hundreds of thousands of ecstatic supporters in Chicago.

The President-elect spoke of his admiration for Mrs Nixon Cooper, a well-to-do, monied centagenarian living in Atlanta whose own life has plotted the struggle of black Americans during the last century:

"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."

Mrs Nixon Cooper was not entirely susprised when she heard her name mentioned at the victory rally. A spokesman from the Obama campaign had called her on Tuesday afternoon at her home on Martin Luther King Drive in Atlanta, and told her that she was about to become America's most famous 106-year-old.

Cooper turns 107 in January, just a few weeks before Obama's inauguration.

"I feel nothing but relief that things have changed as much as they have," she said. "After a while, we will all be one. That's what I look forward to."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5093863.ece

[wryter2000]

1. Good grief.

She's 106? I hope I look that good at 70.

[xxqqqzme]

2. My thoughts as well.

We should all live to look that good at 80.