It's six thirty on inaugural morning and for more than an hour people are already rushing onto the Mall for an event five hours away. Neither the dark or the cold is holding them back.
As I watch this I'm thinking many of these people are the ones who rode buses all night and will board those buses again for a return trip home late tonight. They won't be going to fancy restaurants, parties and balls. They're bundled up against the weather and willing to endure all manner of discomfort to be a part of history. Most will be too far away to actually see Barack Obama's swearing in. They just want to BE there.
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And how appropriate these thousands of ordinary, everyday Americans are being transported to the nation's capitol by bus, a symbol of the civil rights movement, a symbol featured in the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis' Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was murdered. Visitors there can board an old bus, sit down and get a sense of what it must have been like for Rosa Parks and thousands of other black women in white uniforms who rode those buses everyday to go to work as maids in white womens homes. I remember when I visited there years ago and the discomfort I felt when a recorded voice said "move to the back of the bus". It was creepy, even scary. Worse, it brought back a memory from my childhood of an event which left me confused, uncomfortable and embarrassed.
It was four in the afternoon when I boarded a Memphis city bus packed with the maids leaving our neighborhood. No seats were available and many were already standing. I moved down the aisle, prepared to stand for the short trip to my friend's house down the line when I heard the driver shout for someone to get up give the little white girl their seat. The black woman seated closest to me started to get up and I said something like "no, that's okay, I can stand" but she slowly rose and told me to sit down. I was only ten years old and did what 10 year olds did it 1946 - what an adult told me to do - I sat. Even now I squirm thinking about it. Nobody looked directly at me but I felt shamed. I knew as only a child could know that something was terribly wrong, terribly unfair. I had been drilled with proper behavior and part of that was respect for elders - give up your seat for them, hold doors for them, help them with their packages, etc. But that day, on that bus I learned those rules only applied to white people. And when I returned home and told what had happened and asked the WHY question, I was told not to worry, that's just the way things were, Nigras (nobody said "black" then)understood and weren't bothered, they "knew their place".
Knowing your place has a whole new meaning today. Whether there in person or at home, our place is the National Mall where 21st century freedom riders, black and white, will be standing shoulder to shoulder sharing the wonder and beauty of this special day. It's been a long time coming. God bless Barack Obama and watch over him.