Cokie's mother, Lindy Claiborne Boggs, was born on a plantation in the segregated south before women could vote. When she died last week at 97, Barack and Michelle Obama celebrated "her legacy as a champion of women's and civil rights [that] will continue to inspire generations to come."Protecting the right to vote was the central principle of Lindy's political career. During the Louisiana governor's race of 1939, she organized a group of women to prevent a corrupt machine from stealing the election.