12.18.08
Achieving the Impossible
Perhaps it will not fully settle in until Inauguration Day the historic chapter into which this nation is about to enter. While the world focuses on President-Elect Barack Obama, I can’t help but to think of what another accomplished man would say about it all had he lived to see history being made. My great-grandfather would have, no doubt, been extremely proud. To see someone achieve what others call impossible is such an inspiration. My great-grandfather, Dr. John Henry Jordan, did the same thing in his day. He attended Clark College in Atlanta in the late 1800’s before enrolling at Meharry Medical College. He graduated from Meharry in 1896 as valedictorian of his class. Two years later, he became the first African-American doctor in Coweta County, Georgia, near Atlanta. He achieved much more than what was expected for the son of a former slave turned sharecropper. My great-grandfather was too busy focusing on where he was going to let his past drag him down. Of course, there were stumbling blocks along the way and sacrifices that had to be made, but any successful person knows victory comes when you stay on the path without veering off of it no matter how many hills and valleys you stumble across. Stay on course. I think it’s a lesson for us all.
