Maybe next time Grandma

By Carol Kelly Dilworth

I have been thinking about my grandmother a lot the last few days. She was a strong, courageous woman, never afraid to express her feelings nor her opinions.

Carol Kelly Dilworth

I nostalgically recall one of my family’s favorite accounts of the time she bought a rooster from the High Sheriff, as he was referred to in their small central Texas community. She had paid 50 cents for the rooster on credit, but had not yet paid for it. As a result, the sheriff, astride his horse, with rifle on the side, and his pistol in his holster, came by my grandparents’ farm to collect. My grandmother came out of the house as he called to her, “Bertha, I’ve come for my money.” She replied, “Mr. Sheriff, that rooster is blind, and I ain’t paying for no blind rooster.”

My mother and her siblings were scared to death that my grandmother dared speak to this tall, heavy set imposing figure, whose very appearance was frightening enough. But he didn’t frighten Grandma. “How do you know he’s blind Bertha? Did he tell you?” the sheriff asked. My Grandma’s response was “I know a blind chicken when I see one.”

Well, that was too much for the sheriff, so he rode out to the field where my grandfather and my uncle were busy picking their cotton. The sheriff exclaimed to my grandpa, “Miles, you better go and do something with that wife of yours. She won’t pay me for that rooster she bought from me, because she says he’s blind.” My grandfather’s answer became a part of family legend as he replied, “Sir, you got a six shooter in your holster and a shotgun on your side, and you’re the high sheriff of Gonzales County. Now if you can’t do anything with my wife, what makes you think I can?” My uncle said that the sheriff gave a chuckle and rode off.

My grandmother’s spirit, resilience and pride must have made some experiences she suffered in that small community almost unbearable. I can remember vividly the Corner Store, where the women shopped for the food and necessities they didn’t grow on their farms. Because they were women of color, they were not allowed to enter the store like their white counterparts. They had to shop from the entry front porch and were not allowed to advance any further. The owner would come outside and take their order. I didn’t understand it then, but my grandmother never looked directly at me when we were at the Corner Store. I know now she was probably ashamed that I had to see her respond to a norm that required her to appear in a position of inferiority to which she was trapped.

When Kamala Harris became a candidate to become the 47th President of the United States, what an exhilaration of spirit I experienced. And the first person I thought of was my grandma and the countless women of their generation and before. Millions of women who had suffered the horrors of slavery, the indignity and limitations of discrimination, and the inequities of Jim Crowism. In Kamala, it was as if the time had finally come when Black women could say all their suffering was not in vain and they were somehow vindicated because of this fantastic culmination of achievement through her nomination. For one glorious time in the history of our country, all their suffering appeared not to have been in vain.

Yet, on Nov. 5, the goal had not been accomplished, and the dream was crushed. Still, the vice president fought a valiant fight to ascend to the office of the presidency. Sorry Grandma, we didn’t make it this time. Still, we now know that the realization of the dream is now a possibility. And there is always tomorrow.