A Certain Kind of Majesty to This Place …
Maybe because it’s the capital of the United States or that there’s so much history tied to this district. The site was, after all, chosen by George Washington himself. Perhaps it’s because I’ve only seen Washington, DC from publications, the web, TV or the movies.
Like a country bumpkin, I’ve had my share of “ooh, ah” moments. There are so many monuments and museums here, the old dame commands sort of an obligatory reverence.
After leaving the Capitol this afternoon, I hooked up with O’Fallon, IL., residents, Cynthia O’Flaherty and Gerry Montroy. Gerry was once a Catholic priest and civil rights attorney. Cindy worked as an administrative assistant for Con. Jerry Costello in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Both are retired. Both are avid, active and early supporters of the Democratic candidate.
The family had been sight-seeing and catching up with old friends and said they wanted to spend the national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King with a familiar face.
Cynthia worked in Washington when Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were elected. Obama’s inauguration is Cynthia’s third - and most favorite.
Gerry and Cynthia and their adopted daughter, Kate, 13, picked me up in downtown Washington and we drove to “China Town” for lunch. I couldn’t supress my jealous wishes that St. Louis had such an aromatic, eclectic, bustling Asian Mecca downtown.
During our time together, Cynthia reminisced about her years in Washington as Costello’s assistant. She still holds a grudge that the District has never been ratified as a state. As far as she’s concerned, Republicans have long resisted fighting for statehood because, in a heavily Democratic district, the other Party would be stronger in the District.
Cynthia’s hoping things will change in her former district under an Obama Administration backed by tough Democratic legislators in the House and Senate.
Kate, who was born in China, said electing Obama as president in America is comparable to China electing a white president. It’s an impossibility, Kate said, because many Chinese view whites disparagingly.
As for Gerry, Obama’s election is a culmination of his ministerial, activist and legal work. Forty years ago, he was involved in the violent and bloody civil rights struggle in Cairo. Although he chided me for being slow to grasp the idea of a black president, Gerry said he’s also surprised to see this day.
“I never thought that 40 years after such intense struggles for equality, that I’d see a black president in my lifetime,” Gerry said. “That thought still stuns me.”
That makes two of us.
But, on the day set aside to honor King, surrounded by revelers of all hues anxious to welcome the nation’s first black president — “doubt” was the farthest thing from our minds.
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Sylvester Brown, Jr. often refers to himself as the "accidental columnist." He enrolled in college almost 25 years ago to pursue a career as a cartoonist. He ended up starting an award-winning newspaper and falling in love with journalism. Today, as a writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the "accidental columnist's" love affair continues. 
It might be a time of “majestic hope and change” for the press. Unfortunatley for the unborn, a time of despair and death will soon be upon them. I have never in my life seen you bunch of left wing loons so in the tank for one guy.
Congrats on the worst day in American history.
Why is Obama considered black? He is half one race and half another. I am not trying to be crass either, because I keep reading comments from people in the black community that say the same thing. Mariah Carey is excited because he is of mixed racial heritage, which she points out is often harder to be than just one or the other…
Were you, or would you have been, inclined to wax so poetic about Washington DC at a previous inauguration? It appears to me that many of those in your profession have allowed their enthusiasm for the person taking the oath (and for many his race and extremely left-leaning politics) to overwhelm their professionalism and objectivity.
While this inauguration is historic, it is far from a watershed event. It will solve no problems, heal no divisions, and make the world no less dangerous than it was a day, week, month or year ago.
It is the quadrennial orderly transfer of power, different this year only because the oath is for the first time being taken by a person of color.
“I never thought that 40 years after such intense struggles for equality, that I’d see a black president in my lifetime,” Gerry said.
Even today, Gerry, you won’t be seeing a black president. You will be seeing a man of mixed-race, born to a white mother, abandoned by his black father, and raised mostly by his white grandparents.
Why did Barack Obama write a book called “Dreams of My Father” when his father ran out on him at a young age? Why not “Dreams of My Mother?”
Tim, Amazed, et al-This question of Obama’s racial make up came up at work when the campaign was still going on. The answer we got from one of my black co-workers was..”it’s the one-drop rule.” I had to Google that.
As did I slamfist. Never heard that before. Again though, I am hearing this more from the black community than any other. Apparently historical colloquial terms don’t mean as much as they used to back in the day.
Hey Mike, come to think of it the press pretty much orgasmed over Clinton when he got in too…but there’s no bias in America’s media. That is just being made up by Rush Limbaugh…
OK Slam, I looked up the one-drop rule. Now I’m really confused. A rule implemented in the slave era and utilized in the racist Jim Crow South to segragate blacks but ruled illegal in 1967 is now being used to claim Obama as a black man?
Just becuase something is illegal doesn’t mean that it’s effects aren’t present. Just within the last twenty years has there been an acceptance of mixed race people. You were either black or white. If you were mixed you were black. There was no muticultral or biracial box to check for identity.
Many mixed race people in this country are treated like they are black.
Due to the racism in this country mixed race people have had to over come incredible identiy issues.
How some do not understand the “one drop rule”.
The people who are claiming that Obama is not Black need to do a little research, or is just now that a mixed raced man has won the highest office in our nation want to change the game again on Black people?
When mixed race children and their parents were screaming this fact that they ARE BOTH! Not many wanted to hear!
It will never change because people judge people by what they see. Now, how can you tell a mixed race individual? Most cannot because they are born of every complexion color from white to dark brown and from straight hair to kinky hair, some even can past for White as my grandchild can. Now lets not even go into the fact that Blacks without any White parent come in all these color shades and hair textures also. Some are assumed Jewish when seen, some Hispanics others Black etc. Some can even past for White.
So how about people just getting to the point where it doesn’t matter what race one is.
Discussions of race will only be positive and helpful when done face to face in an open forum. Then I wonder how many hate slingers would say out loud and in the open what they write in these blogs….
Nice try P.D. At least you’re trying to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.