Hale Sisters at the DNC
After leaving the Colorado Convention Center August 26, I headed to the Pepsi Center for Hillary Clinton’s prime time speech. The excitement started to build. What would I see? Would there be an uprising from Clinton supporters? Maybe they would lash out during her speech and demand that Obama select her as a Vice President. All of these thoughts and more started poured into my head. I was anticipating the story or blog that I would write and literally, it was right in front of my nose.
I stumbled onto a Black family bubbling over with enthusiasm for this historic DNC. Corliss and Terrance Hale brought their two daughters Adarah and Nayla to the DNC.
The Hale’s are fostering a spirit of political participation in their family. Corliss said that she wanted her daughters to have a first-hand experience of our country’s democratic process. Along with her husband, Corliss encouraged her daughters to ask questions and take pictures outside of the Colorado Convention Center on that August 26, 2008.
“What is the first thing you think of when you hear the name Michelle Obama?” asked 9-year-old Nayla Hale. Younger sister Adarah seemed even more enthusiastic. The 7 year old year repated one of the questions that she had been asking delegates, “How do you think Obama is going to help children’s education?” It blew my mind that these two beautiful sisters were so informed at such a young age.
John W. Olsen, a super delegate from Connecticut, told the parents that’s the questions the Hale sisters were asking were better than the questions that many journalists had been asking him.
After this encounter. I couldn’t stop thinking about civic participation or the lack thereof. If children can get involved, so can millions of adults. And for those who sit and watch, doing nothing, look to Adarah and Nayla for inspiration. Because our children truly are our future.
(Left to right: Nayla, Terrance, Corliss and Adarah)
Tags: Kisha Allison