City celebrates Obama

City celebrates Obama

Hundreds gather to watch televised inauguration

By CHAD SMITH
chad.smith@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 01/21/09


A few dozen yards west of a market where, more than a century ago, slaves were sold at auction and a few dozen yards north of where, in the 1960s, black men and black women could not sit and eat at the Woolworth's pharmacy, several hundred people gathered Tuesday to watch on television as Barack Obama was sworn in as president.

At noon a TV commentator chimed in over the sound of a cello and said of Obama: "He is now the president of the United States." Obama had not yet taken the oath of office, but President George W. Bush's term had ended, as per the 20th Amendment to the Constitution.

On the Plaza de la Constitucion the crowd erupted at the news.

Louise Williams sat in a folding chair and wore a wide smile and damp eyes and shook her head as if in disbelief.

Williams, who has lived in St. Augustine since she was 5, later said she didn't think she would see the day when a black man would take the helm of the nation. Not after witnessing the Civil Rights struggle in her hometown. Not after being spat upon as she walked around that very plaza some four decades ago.

"Never. Never. Never," she said. Even on Monday she had doubts it would really happen.

But it did.

While Obama indirectly derided the Bush administration in his speech, there was not a lot of policy talk on the plaza.

There were a few groans when the Rev. Rick Warren was announced to give the invocation and quite a bit of applause when Obama mentioned a renewed dedication to science. Still, the crowd mostly appeared to be appreciating the moment.

Sam Aintablian watched the ceremony from the student center at Flagler College, where he is a senior studying sport management.

The 21-year-old Pasadena, Calif., native wore a black T-shirt adorned with Obama's face and carried Tuesday's edition of USA Today with a banner headline declaring, "Obama takes power." Aintablian said he thought about his grandmother in California and was thankful she lived to witness the occasion.

John Young, an assistant

professor of history at Flagler, spent his lunch break watching Obama speak with his wife, Alicia, a stay-at-home mom, and their four children.

Alicia Young said while she was happy her children could get a glimpse of the historic transfer of power, she was mostly hopeful that at some point, when her children are older, they won't give a second thought about the magnitude of the election of a black president.

Herman Lewis, a 54-year-old Hastings resident and a patient-care technician at Flagler Hospital, brought two of his younger children downtown. Like Young, Lewis said he wants his children to take away something from Obama's victory, mainly the belief that they can do anything. If the son of an African immigrant father who was raised by a single, poor mother and his grandparents, then anyone can do anything.

Now, he said, race can't be a deterrent for them because racial barriers don't exist like they did, when slaves were sold at the market or police needed to be present when St. Augustine Beach was integrated.

"It's not the black race or the white race," Lewis said. "It's the human race."


Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/012109/news_0121_023.shtml

© The St. Augustine Record