4:39 PM PST, November 4, 2008
Gertrude Baines’ 114-year-old fingers wrapped lightly over the ballpoint pen as she bubbled in No. 18 on her ballot Tuesday. Her mouth curled up in a smile. A laugh escaped. The deed was done.
A daughter of former slaves, Baines had just voted for a black man to be president of the United States. “What’s his name? I can’t say it,” she said shyly afterward. Those who helped her fill out the absentee ballot at a convalescent facility west of USC chimed in: “Barack Obama.”
Baines is the world’s oldest person of African descent, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which validates claims of extreme old age. She is the third-oldest person in the world, and the second-oldest in the United States after Edna Parker of Indiana, who is 115.
When Baines was born, Grover Cleveland was president and the U.S. flag had 44 stars. She grew up in Georgia during a time when black people were prevented from voting, discriminated against and subject to violent racism. In her lifetime, she has seen women gain the right to vote, and drastic changes to federal voting laws and to the Constitution — and now, this.
“No, I didn’t never think I’d live this long.” she said.
The walls of Baines’ room on the second floor of Western Convalescent Hospital are covered with birthday cards from presidents and officials from years gone by.
A picture of George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, is framed on the wall. Above it is a signed picture of Obama and City Councilman Bernard Parks, now running for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. On Baines’ bed sit two teddy bears, one with an Obama pin on its right arm.
“Why am I voting for him? Because he’s for the colored,” Baines said, her language itself hearkening to a different time. “Sure it’s good. That’s the first one I know to be in there. Everybody’s glad for colored men to be in there sometime.”
