Spirit of message is something that can live in us all

By Rochelle Riley
Free Press Columnist
January 21, 2009

WASHINGTON -- I am Barack Obama.

I stood at the base of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday awaiting the dawn of a new America, and I chanted my grandparents' names.

Bennie and Lowney Pitt would have been 103 and 95, respectively, had they lived. They raised my brother, sister and me, sent us to college and pushed me to one day write about a president. Had they lived, they would have stood in that crowd on the Mall.
They helped me see my worth.

My grandparents are Barack Obama.

Up to 2 million people braved cold weather and long trains to stand united in the name of hope. They stood united in reverence and shock as they watched America change before their eyes.

They are Barack Obama.

The singer Smokey Robinson sat with the man who gave him his career, his friend and Motown Records founder Berry Gordy.
"This is absolutely one of the most wonderful days of my life," Robinson said. "This is history, and it's long overdue. And I lived to see this."
Robinson said his only regret was that Drs. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph David Abernathy did not live to see it.
"I hope they are somewhere where they can see it," he said. "It's just a beautiful, wonderful thing. The United States of America is finally the United States of America."

The inaugural crowd stretched from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, and the two monuments became bookends to an era that began with King speaking at one end 45 years ago to President Barack Obama speaking at the other end Tuesday: two nonviolent intellectuals, two community organizers, facing each other through time.

Those bookends made me think of another.
My trip to a new America began Monday on the same flight as Julian Bond, the civil rights leader, national NAACP chairman, professor, former Georgia legislator and cofounder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. He had just spoken at the University of Michigan. He'll be back today to speak at Central Michigan University.
But on the most historic day in America's history, his place was in Washington.

"I think I'm like everybody else, particularly people my age, in saying we never thought this would happen," he said at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. "I never, never, never thought this would happen. This is the result of the work the civil rights movement has done and the NAACP has done for 100 years. And while we cannot claim credit for this, and this is not really something we were aiming for, it is the ability for this to happen that we were working for. It makes you feel good."

Julian Bond is Barack Obama.

My visit with him was bookended by Tuesday's benediction, which was given by the Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, a lion of the movement. He recited the final verse of "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," the Negro National Anthem and my favorite song. His recitation made it a part of the American story.

He is Barack Obama.

Hope grew across the city Tuesday.
The little boy walking with his father to see the new president on a cold, crisp day.

He is Barack Obama.

The little girl sleeping on her mother's lap on the Metro.

She is Barack Obama.

President Obama's gift to the country is not that he has redefined black America. What he has done is finally prove to America that African Americans like Barack Obama exist. And as long as we, all of us, see the things that connect most of us--a yearning for education, the pursuit of happiness, a love of family, fairness and justice-- it is hard to focus on our differences.

I stood at the base of the Capitol and watched a man who has single-handedly reminded America that we are not black and white, or brown and white. We are haves and have-nots, and those of us who share equal travails or equal success have always gotten along fine.
We just need to help each other succeed more, stand up for each other more.

I stood Tuesday for my grandmother.
I stood for my grandfather and his 10 siblings, none of whom ever dreamed of seeing an African-American president.

We must all stand for America's children and its families, people with infinite possibilities if America gives them infinite opportunities.

On Tuesday, I stared at a sea of people and tried to imagine what King saw 45 years ago.
Whatever it was, I hope that President Obama saw it 45 years later.
Endless possibilities. A new America.

I am Barack Obama.

We all can be.


http://www.freep.com/article/20090121/OBAMAINAUGURATION10/901210385
Contact ROCHELLE RILEY at rriley99@freepress.com.