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Granddaughter of slave: I was 'afraid' for Obama

Mary Dowden smiles when she thinks about this moment in history. At 80 years old, she's the granddaughter of a slave who was born in a cotton field outside of Como, Mississippi.

It's difficult to put into words how she feels about Barack Obama, the issues so complex for a black country girl who lost both her parents by the age of 18 and then had to work a hard-scrabble life as a sharecropper.

"I was really afraid for him, because I didn't want nobody to kill him," she says when asked about casting her ballot for Obama.

Dowden, the granddaughter of a slave, holds her chin high. Referring to Obama, she says, "It's his time."

Read entire article at CNN