Older African-Americans in awe but on edge

‘A magnificent role model’
Both Kelly and McGee said that nothing would serve as a better affirmation for African-Americans than an Obama presidency. “Obama will be a magnificent role model for people of every race in the United States,” McGee said. “And now we can really say that anyone can be president if he wins, and we couldn’t have said that before. Until he’s elected, as of now, we cannot say that.”

Kelly pointed out that some of the trouble she has in believing Obama will actually be elected lies in his personal story “It’s almost like a film script that somebody wrote to end up like an inspiration," she said. “Whoever would have thought that a white woman from Kansas would get together with a guy from African and produce this man?"

McGee said an Obama victory would send a positive message to the rest of the world, which, he pointed out, is mostly non-Caucasian. However, he added, “The degree that it will improve race relations is an unknown question.”

In some ways, they said, Michelle Obama as first lady would be an even richer icon. “She’s not half-white,” said Kelly. “She’s for real black, dark black. … It’s already changed me. … She is someone you can look at and know that it’s OK to be who you are. It’s OK to be who God made you.”

McGee’s doubts about Obama’s prospects lessened with the Republicans’ selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as their vice-presidential nominee. While McGee finds Sen. John McCain a reasonable candidate for president, he believes that McCain’s “fighter pilot decision” to appease his conservative base with Palin turned many voters to Obama.

“If McCain can win with a vice president like that, it will tell us a lot about the race situation in the United States,” McGee said.

'Divinely inspired'
But if American voters choose Obama, said Kelly, “That this country that came from slavery is able to elect a black man president, I find it just incredible, almost divinely inspired. That’s why I think it is impossible.”

Mount Zion Baptist Church John Kelsie

Have a little faith, counsels John Kelsie. A deeply religious man who has served as caretaker of Mount Zion for more than 40 years while he also pursued a career in the city’s engineering department, Kelsie loves to share metaphors about the mysterious powers of an abiding conviction in a higher power. For him, it is God, “who created me.”

Kelsie, who has seen 16 American presidents come and go, admits that for much of his life, it never occurred to him that a black person could be elected to the nation’s highest office. “My upbringing was so tough that I never thought there would be a day that I would even be in my own house.”

Now, however, when it comes to Obama, “My nerves are beginning to quiet down. It’s time for a change and there’s going to be a change. The Bible says the top will go to the bottom and bottom will go to the top.”

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