DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 6:00 p.m. November 05, 2008
106-year-old in Obama speech: ‘Things can change’
Ann Nixon Cooper of Atlanta unruffled by worldwide glare of attention
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
About 11 a.m. Wednesday, Ann Nixon Cooper emerged from her second-floor bedroom, descended the stairs of her stately Atlanta home to the kitchen and enjoyed her breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and Holland toast washed down by a cup of hot tea.
“It’s nothing unusual really,” she said.
John Spink / jspink@ajc.com
In her home near the Atlanta University Center, Ann Nixon Cooper, 106, reflects on the historic election of Barack Obama.
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Fewer than 12 hours earlier, President-elect Barack Obama told the world the story of a 106-year-old woman who knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a child and who decades later cast her ballot for the country’s first African-American president. Obama spoke about Cooper at length in his nationally televised acceptance speech.
“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 color of her skin,” he told thousands of supporters gathered in Chicago’s Grant Park.
“And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes, we can.”
Back in Atlanta Wednesday morning, throngs of reporters — NBC News, The London Times — traipsed through Cooper’s home near the Atlanta University Center, where she has lived since 1937.
Her reaction to Obama becoming the nation’s first black president: “I never thought we’d see that happen. I always thought it would be a white man. Now I see that things can change and I’m glad to know it.”
On hearing Obama talk about her on national television: “I wasn’t surprised because I knew it was going to happen.” (The Obama camp called her about 10 p.m. Tuesday; Obama himself called last month and left a message.)
On all the strangers in her home: “It’s not that unusual. This has always been a house where people come to gather.”
Is she a celebrity? “Oh, no. I wouldn’t think of myself that way.”
Cooper was born in Shelbyville, Tenn., about 50 miles south of Nashville, on Jan. 9, 1902 and raised in Nashville.
In 1922, she married the late Albert Berry Cooper, a dentist from Nashville. The couple soon moved to Atlanta, where Dr. Cooper opened a dental practice and his wife raised their four children, one of whom is still living — Joyce Bobo, 83, of Los Angeles. Cooper was a homemaker most of her life, except for a brief stint as a policy writer for the Atlanta Life Insurance Co. She also has served on numerous boards and committees in Atlanta over the years.
The Obama campaign became aware of Cooper when CNN featured her early voting with Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin in late October. The next day, Obama called her.
“I just want you to know how nice it is to have your support,” he said on her answering machine, leaving his cellphone number. “I’m going to take your advice and keep smiling.”
“The whole thing was thrilling, and to have Atlanta highlighted in his speech, that was unpredictable,” a jubilant Franklin said Wednesday.
Still, Cooper, who uses a walker but otherwise is in good health, didn’t see what all the fuss was about Wednesday.
She planned to take a nap and possibly a short drive with one of her caretakers — just like any other day.
“I’ve had all the excitement one could expect when something like this happens,” she said. “It’s been real nice.”
— Staff writers Michelle Shaw and Eric Stirgus contributed to this story.
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