American Plans For Inauguration Celebration

November 25th, 2008|Editor
President

When Obama won the president elect, the air was filled by people screaming and yelling and marching bands came out of nowhere. Can the inauguration reach the “end of Return of the Jedi” feeling that came with election day?

But on Nov. 4, she slipped on white gloves and pearls and found her way to a polling booth. And on Jan. 20, she wants to see the countrys first inauguration of a black president – not from a couch at home but from somewhere closer by.

“So much history in this, honey,” Brew said. “You gonna get me a ticket?”

From the District of Columbias historically black neighborhoods to Honolulu, Americans who had let many presidents pass them by are clamoring for a chance to be a part of Barack Obamas inauguration. There are lengthy waiting lists for tickets to the inauguration and balls. Hotels have filled up as far away as West Virginia.

Organizers can only guess at the size of the crowds, but the estimates range from 1 million to an unprecedented 5 million, which are certain to include many African-Americans who feel connected to the White House for the first time.

The crowd will include people like Mark Anthony Jenkins of the Bronx, N.Y., who runs the online Black Singles magazine. Jenkins has rented 10 buses and has already sold out four for an $80 journey that leaves at 4 a.m. and includes Obama T-shirts and snacks. Jenkins hired 10 cameramen to document the experience.

“People see this as a historical event,” Jenkins said. “Many of them arent old enough to remember Martin Luther King Jr., you know, they never saw him.”

In the weeks since Obamas victory, Washingtons NAACP bureau has been fielding questions about lodging from members as far away as California. Area colleges and universities, including the historically black Howard University, are receiving calls from out-of-town students wanting to crash in dorm rooms.

Some are thankful just for a floor.

“The kids will see it and remember it,” said James Robinson of Greenburgh, N.Y., who has a relative in suburban Maryland who offered her floor to his family. “If were there, I think it will sink in more that, I can be anything I want to be.”

About 400 NAACP members from Florida are planning to drive at least 12 hours by car or bus, said Beverlye Colson Neal, executive director of the state chapter. Neal hopes to stand along the inaugural parade route with her four grandchildren, ages 1 to 10.

“We are going to take plenty of pictures, so they will know, I was there,” she said.

“I said, Were going all the way,” Jackson said. “Our congregation is elated, just overwhelmed that theyre sharing in a history-making event. Its been a long time coming.”

Tondaylea Linsey of Stockbridge, Ga., made up her mind to go moments after Obamas victory was announced, and booked her ticket even before she was sure she could get the time off work.

“Even though its going to be freezing up there and theres going to be a million people … this is like, once in a lifetime,” said Linsey, 26.

For many older than Linsey, the journey has deep connections to their struggle for civil rights. Members of the historic First Baptist Church in Norfolk, Va., will crowd onto buses 50 years to the month after six of the citys public schools were ordered to integrate and shut down instead. Seventeen children who were educated in the basement of the downtown church, known as the Norfolk 17, were the first to break the color barrier.

Some of the Norfolk 17 will be on the trip, church trustee Michael Lawton said.

Source: caacs