Jan. 28, 2013

Group of locals traveled to D.C. for Inauguration Day

By SCOTT WRIGHT

CENTRE — A group of Cherokee County residents were among the thousands – the hundreds of thousands, actually – who braved a brisk January day last week to attend the second inaugural of President Barack Obama on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

With the lasting memories of a historic day still fresh in their minds, members of that group sat down with local media last week at Shiloh Church in Centre to reminisce, share photographs and document the occasion.

Centre residents Gene and Lois Flint, along with Rita Stover and her mother, Ethel Carson, all from Centre, and Leesburg resident Tramain Dupree agreed the day was “historic” and will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

The busload of people, from multiple ethnicities and all walks of life, left Gadsden at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and had an uneventful trip up interstates 40 and 81 to the nation's capital. “We drove for about 8 hours before we stopped, so it was a long trip,” Gene Flint said. “It was about 14 hours, in all.”

Flint said he met people from another group who had arrived in town after a 24-hour bus trip from Dallas, Texas.

“We could've used a stretch,” Stover added. “But it wasn't too bad.”

After a day on their own Sunday, the 45 or so members of the troupe gathered again in the early hours of Monday morning for a short bus ride to RFK Stadium, a few miles east of the Capitol, then boarded other forms of transportation and headed west to the National Mall.

Dupree, who attended Obama's first inaugural in January 2009, said she and the group of children she chaperoned were among the first to reach the viewing area Monday morning.

“My thing was, this was an experience for them,” Dupree said. “I had already done it but the boys weren't old enough last time. We got there early because we wanted to be close. Last time I didn't get as close.”

Carson had been lucky enough to secure a ticket to a secure seating area near the site of the swearing-in ceremony and President Obama's speech. Stover said she spent the morning walking with her mother, maneuvering crowded walkways and barricaded city streets, to try and find the correct security gate.

“I was only going to walk with momma as far as I could go, because I didn't have a ticket to the seated area,” Stover said. “We got in line, standing in the dark, and I asked a man how far he thought I might get to go with momma before I was going to have to leave her on her own, and he said, 'You can go all the way, because I've got an extra ticket and I'm going to give it to you'. He was from London.”

Stover and Carson ended up in a cordoned-off section with a good view of the temporary stage area on the west side of the Capitol.

“In our section, we got to take pictures of Kerry Washington, Wendell Pierce, who acts on 'The Wire,' Gabrielle Union was there, Alfre Woodard, and others,” Strover said. “Jamie Foxx was in that section and I went hunting for him, but I couldn't find him.”

Dupree said she noticed how happy everyone seemed to be there.

“There was no division,” Dupree said. “There was unity. Everyone was sharing food, sharing water, sharing hand warmers. And there were enough American flags for everyone to have two or three. There was unity, and everybody was at peace, having fun. We were all there together.”

Mrs. Flint said there was a group of white girls behind her in the viewing area where she and her husband ended up viewing the ceremony that was “real nice”. Mrs. Flint said they started waving a gay rights flag when the president began his speech.

Stover said her favorite part of the speech was when President Obama talked about the “unfinished business” he means to tackle in his second term, and how he kept stressing that all Americans are equal, regardless of race, age, gender, or status.

“And he wasn't just talking about gays, or blacks, or whites, he was talking about everybody being united,” Stover said.

Dupree said she got the same message from the president.

“My favorite part of the speech was when he said we're all in this together, we're all equal, and it's time to go to work,” she said.

Carson said one moment in particular will stay with her.

“When he said he wanted to scan around and see all the people since this was his last time, that moment will stay with me as long as I have my right mind,” she said.

Lois Flint said, “The basis of his speech was that it's about all of us, as a unit. We have gotten away from helping people in the United States. Now it's all about, 'why did you miss the boat'. It used to be about helping people and helping find out how they missed it. There's always a reason people are in the circumstance they are in. Nobody wants to depend on somebody else, and I believe the president believes that.”

Gene Flint said it was the opening of President Obama's speech that moved him the most.

“It gave me goose bumps, and being a black person it made me feel a certain way,” Gene Flint said. “And being an American, it made me feel that way, too.”

“Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy,” Obama had begun. “We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'”

Flint said after a delay to look for a few stragglers from the group, the bus loaded back up late Monday afternoon for the long ride back home to Alabama.