Barack Obama’s grandmother has died. 

My grandmother is of her generation, born in 1925 rather than 1922.  Periodically, she’s asked me if I really thought a black man could become president.  She grew up through the Depression, through the vestiges of Jim Crow, through separate but equal, through Martin and Malcolm.  The profoundly sad thing about Mrs. Dunham’s death is that she won’t be able to see her grandson do something that was impossible even 40 years ago, but we can draw inspiration that men and women of her generation, raised in a world where a man of Barack Obama’s skin color was barely a person, will see the world change tomorrow. 

Thank you, Madelyn Dunham, for helping raise a fine man in Barack Obama.  We all hope to do you proud tomorrow.