16 and counting.......

A TRIBUTE TO AUNT MELBA BUNN

I was in North Carolina over the weekend for the funeral of my Aunt who has been there since my family migrated to New York. She decided to stay even though my mother's other six siblings ventured up I-95 to settle in Poughkeepsie. Amidst the sadness, the weekend was filled with the joy of family coming together to celebrate her life. Going back to Whitakers, NC always uncovers memories of my first five years there--the simplicity of farm life, the open fields, and the slow paced life. On the way to bury my Aunt at Red Hill Cemetery we passed the farm where we lived. It's now overgrown with vegetation but the dirt road from Route 33 toward the farm is still there. Along Route 33 I managed to snap a photo of a cotton field--- a graphic image of what shaped my mother and my Aunt's life during the 1940s and 50s. They worked the land alongside my grandparents who were sharecroppers. Work replaced schooling as a necessity for surviving. By the time we moved north during the cold winter of 1965, the sharecropping system had drained almost everything from the family. What we had left was our faith and dignity--more than enough to continue the journey.

There are thousands and thousands of families like mine who never saw justice in the South. I will vote this year as a tribute to my Aunt and many others who could not vote. It is a short walk to the voting booth, but another marker in the long, checkered journey of American democracy.