News Items Today

Madelyn Payne Dunham, 86, the maternal grandmother of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, has died today after her battle with cancer.

Tragic news today for Barack Obama as he announced this morning that his beloved grandmother has lost her long battle with cancer. A very sad day for him which must take the edge of his impending victory.

This devastating news was not unexpected and when he visited her a couple of weeks ago he feared that this would be the last time that he saw her alive.

He said today: I have to battle on, and at this critical stage in the campaign there is not a minute to be lost as both candidates pull in the undecided votes in the last lap in the race to the White House.

He continued “She was a quiet hero”, by that I mean one of the many silent people who are not famous, but work hard all their lives for the sake of their families, so that their children will have a better future. “That is what America is all about”.

“She’s the one who taught me about hard work,” he said. “She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me.”

Madelyn Payne Dunham, 86, died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Honolulu with Barack Obama’s sister by her side. Obama said “She has gone home”, “She is at peace”. “There is “Great joy as well as tears”. God Bless Her.

What a great shame that his grandmother will not be here to witness this historical event as Barack Obama seems likely to become the first black president of the United States of America.

“The son of a Kenyan man and a white woman from Kansas, Obama was born in Hawaii. When he was 11, his mother, Ann Dunham, sent him to Honolulu, where Obama spent years living in a two-bedroom apartment with his grandmother and grandfather, Stanley Dunham”.

Obama lived with his grandmother for a period of his life in Hawaii, she part raised him and they shared an extremely close bond with with each other. She was a constant and ongoing support to him.

Obama said of his grandmother that she was a ‘Cornerstone in my life’. “She has been the rock of my life”. “she worked very hard all her life and made a lot of sacrifices for my family”.

She was a great role model for him, and as a white woman, he drew from this throughout his political career thus far, to help to try and bridge the black/white racial divide. She instilled her great values such as honesty, hard work and respect of your fellow man into her grandson.

In a joint statement released today, Obama and his sister said: “Our debt to our grandmother is beyond measure.”

On a CBS News interview today Obama spoke of an African, American he had met during his campaign. This woman was 90 years old and had lived through some terrible times in American history. She grabbed hold of his hand and told him how proud she was of him and how important it was for him to be President.

Obama said, you can only imagine what a ninety year old African/American black woman has gone through in her life. I have to come through for people like this. I can’t let them down. I will stick to my promises.

This very sad news of the death of his grandmother will win Obama extra support as he continues, heartbroken on, with this final and crucial stage in the last straights of the electoral campaign.

Tonight he will be casting his own vote in the resting place of the presidential campaign, and his home town, of Chicago.

Christianna Garrett-Martin

Trackback URI | Comments RSS