The Long Road To the Inauguration

Three elderly Mississippians made the trip to D.C. last week to see President Obama inaugurated, there was a lot of time to reflect on the present and past as they made the 1000 mile journey north. MPB's Phoebe Judge reports.

It’s three thirty in the morning on January 20th, in nine hours Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States, and at a hotel in Richmond Virginia a busload of Gulf Coast residents are gathering to make the last two hours of their trip into D.C. Chantrelle White is one of the first in the lobby. Next to her sits her eight year old daughter,

“She didn’t go to sleep the night of the elections, and that’s all she talked about can we go, can we go. So we’re here.”

Chantrelle White’s daughter is the youngest of the 34 people who took the 20 hour bus ride from Biloxi to D.C. The oldest 84-year-old Ella Tillman is one of the last to climb on board followed by 83-year-old Ruby Brock, and Ruthie White. These women grew up in a Mississippi where blacks were treated as second class citizens. Ruthie White,

“I always knew that it was going to change I knew that the time was coming, and I was hoping that it would come when I was alive. You think I would miss something like this. I think I would have come if I stand up most of the way, or sit on the floor.”

D.C. was preparing for millions to descend on the city for the inauguration, months of planning had gone into this day. All this time on the bus had given Ruby Brock a lot of time to think about the significance of what they were about to see,

“I worked as a girl about 14 years old in white people’s houses. I couldn’t go in the front door I’d go around to the back, that was the way of life and that’s what we had to do.”

It was bitterly cold when the bus pulled up to the RFK Stadium, the staging area for thousands of charter buses from across the country. The three women got their rolling cart filled with lawn chairs from under the bus and started walking, following the crowds.

“It’s dark it’s been dark, I don’t know even know how I got in here, and how would I know how to get out.”

Ruby Brock, walks at an amazingly fast pace for an 83 year old and she was leading the way for the other women. By ten a.m. the women had made their way to the gates of the capitol, and it became clear very quickly that the mall was not going to accommodate the millions who had shown up. The goal now for Ella Tillman was to find a place to at least sit down,

“I can’t walk far. I’m 84 years old and I can’t walk far, but I’m doing the best that I can.”

Even in the crowds the three women from Mississippi stood out, and people would ask where they were from, offer to carry one of their bags for a moment as they made their way up D Street. Ruby Brock,

“I never saw so many people, I’m not the only one, there just wasn’t enough room in Washington for all of these people.”

Barack Obama was scheduled to take the oath of office at noon sharp, and two blocks away the women had finally found a place to stop and rest,

“Sitting on a bus stop, a city bus stop, eating a hotdog. Instead of seeing President Obama put his hand on the Lincoln bible to be sworn in, we got a hotdog.”

Ruthie White grew up in Mississippi, but would travel to California often as a girl, and she would see the difference between how blacks were treated in the north, it had an effect,

“We were little rebels growing up. We used to go to J.C. Penny, they had two water fountains. This is white and this is colored. What is colored, we don’t know. We are not familiar with colored. We going to drink out of this one, we don’t know what that is. We knew what we were doing we were trying to break the barrier down.”

Back on the bus, twelve hours after their day had begun, Ruby Brock seems grateful,

“I wanted to be there. I said it may be my only time, it may be my last time going. But I wanted to there, and I’m still glad. Even if I didn’t get a chance to see the event. At least he may not know me, but he do know I care.”

For these three women it really wasn’t about where they spent inauguration day. Something bigger had occurred, something they never thought they would see in their lifetime. A black man was now in the White House. For MPB News, I’m Phoebe Judge in Gulfport