Portrait in Greyscale

It embarasses me to write something this unabashedly hagiographic. But it fits the prompt.

The portrait is here

She was the controversial grayscale
          the portrait in black and white
She was the first Black First Lady—
          who would have thought it of a colored girl?
She was the skirt of bright colored patches
          quilted onto an expanse of white
She was the hostess in the White House
          and its heart for eight years

She was the year we had all been waiting for
          all of our lives without knowing
She was the knowing of the ancestor women
          who sewed the quilts from rags
She was the ragged edge of our need,
          of our hope for change for the future
She was the voice of our hope for change
          and the symbol of how far we’ve come

She was symbolic. She was substantial.
          She was her husband’s shadow.
She stood out from his shadow
          as no other First Lady ever had.
She was first in everything she did
          and there will never be another first
another first Black First Lady
          another first milestone for the ages

She was a milestone we all passed together.
          She was always controversial.

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