PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION: REFLECTIONS ON A HISTORIC DAY: Ceremony in D.C. turned hope into fact

Although I did not have tickets to the Inauguration, I still wanted to go to Washington. I left Friday morning. By Monday morning I had a ticket and what amounted to a front-row seat.

I wish I could effectively describe the mood and atmosphere during the ceremonies. Everyone had expressions on their faces as though they were actually “seeing” people for the very first time. White people were viewing black people in a new and different light. Black people also were viewing white people in a new and different light. I stood shoulder to shoulder with white, black, Asian and Hispanic people who had tears in their eyes as Barack Obama repeated the oath of office for president of the United States.

Everyone, all 2 million of us, went out of our way to be courteous and friendly, as if to say that this is the tone that Obama is setting and we want to be a part of it. According to news accounts, there were no arrests, not one, related to the Inauguration.

I carried along with me the framed pictures of my grandparents, who were born in the 1890s, as well as the pictures of my great-grandparents, who were former slaves in Mississippi. Due to the times in which they lived, not one of them would have dreamed that a black person would have become president of the United States. But each one of them had hope that their children and grandchildren would see a better day and be viewed as human beings with equal rights, rather than something subhuman as they had been viewed.

I believe that day was fully realized on Inauguration Day 2009. All the excuses that some white people have used over the generations as a reason to hate black people because of the color of their skin —- GONE! All the excuses that some black people have used over the years as a crutch for not becoming productive, successful, self-sufficient members of our society —- GONE!

As a black girl, born and raised in Mississippi, who grew up with the “white only” and “colored only” signs, who never went to school with a white person, who couldn’t drink from the same water fountain as whites, who had to sit in the balcony of the movie theater segregated from whites, who had to go to the back door of a restaurant to be served as late as 1970, to have witnessed what my grandparents thought was an impossibility gave me new hope for our country.

After having lived through all that I have endured, I still love America and I have faith in my fellow man. I was raised not to be bitter or vindictive, and my husband and I instilled those same values into our children. I truly believe that whites have nothing to fear.

I don’t know what kind of president Obama will be. Only history will judge that. I do know that he is surrounding himself with people of all stripes —- Democrats, Republicans, blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics —- all of whom appear to be very intelligent and ready to hit the ground running in an effort to lead our country. I’m going to do my part to help him achieve his goals for America, and I hope and pray that everyone else will do the same.

> Janice Pope, a resident of Decatur, is a manager with the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta.