All Souls Day

In early summer of 1963, a white woman nourished a babe in her womb. The woman had herself been born and raised--raised badly, bleakly--in rural Kansas, U.S.

In early summer 1963, to her half-sister, born of a poor Argentinian woman and the same German father, she uttered the words: "Blacks do not have souls."

The babe in the woman's womb is now 45 years old, living in Somerville, Massachusetts. It is November 5, 2008, and the United States of America has elected the first African-American president.

The babe-woman weeps with all the black souls. And rejoices.