Elijah B. Odom was born a slave in Mississippi in the 1800s. He was the father of Ruth Bonner, who on September 24, 2016, at the age of 99, joined President Barack Obama in ringing a bell dating back to 1880s from First Baptist Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, to dedicate the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
References
Elijah B. Odom Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA