As I stood on the Mall last Tuesday, surrounded by over 2 million of my fellow citizens, I couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t a tentative smile, where the corners of your mouth turn up. It wasn’t a smile through the tears, although that was the reaction of many of the people surrounding me. No, my smile was what my father would have characterized as a “cheesy grin” – the type of smile where all of your teeth show, accompanied by the uncontrollable urge to break into hysterical laughter. Here I was, in Washington D.C., watching Chief Justice John Roberts swear in President Barack Hussein Obama, the country’s first African-American President.

I was a witness to history. (You can view a slideshow of my photos here.)

Earlier that weekend, my husband and I had spent our Sunday afternoon on a snow covered battlefield in Gettysburg. In many ways, this was the perfect place to reflect upon the magnitude of Tuesday’s inauguration ceremonies. After all, the Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Men had fought and died here – some to preserve our United States, others who firmly believed in their right to self-determination. In the background, there was always the uneasy, unanswered question of slavery. This battle set the stage for a Union victory and the eventual passage of the “Civil War” Amendments that would abolish slavery, provide citizenship to American-Americans, and enfranchise black male voters.

These Amendments, however, were not enough to secure equal rights for blacks in America. Jim Crow laws flourished throughout the south, requiring separate accommodations for whites and blacks. The 1896 court case of Plessy v. Ferguson further institutionalized the doctrine of “separate but equal,” leading to decades of discrimination against African-Americans.

Although I’m not old enough to remember the Civil Rights movement, my stepmother is. When I was growing up in Birmingham, Bonnie would tell me and my sisters about the segregated south of her childhood – from buses to movie theaters, from separate water fountains to separate bathrooms. When we would go down to the old Rickwood Field to watch our minor league baseball team, she would tell us the stories her father told her about the Black Barons, one of the Negro League teams which had played on that very field. And the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama? That bridge was named after one of Bonnie’s relatives.

Even though I wasn’t alive when Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) overturned the idea of separate but equal school facilities, the schools of my youth were operating under a desegregation order. My teenage years were seeped in the history of the civil rights movement. I learned about Bull Connor in my Alabama history class. I’ve been to Selma and to Montgomery. I have seen the jail where Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his famous letter in 1963.

Because of this, the inauguration of Barack Obama really was a personal experience. As the first African American president of the United States, he symbolizes the fact that Martin Luther King’s dream can come true. His election teaches us that while many communities still suffer from poverty and from de facto segregation, these problems can be surmounted. Now, when I tell my nephew that he can grow up to be the President of the United States, I am not lying to him.

My husband often calls me the “happy pessimist.” I’ll admit that this can be true. When you study public policy for a living, it’s easy to see the flaws in the system. The media coverage of politics can be brutal – “If it bleeds, it leads” – because it focuses on the low points of government. We talk about scandals like Governor Blagojevich allegedly selling a senate seat or disasters like the inadequate plans to evacuate New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It is a rare news story that focuses on the positive.

Yet, when I think about my experiences on Tuesday, I am not pessimistic or cynical. I was a witness to the peaceful transition of power from one political party to the next – a contrast to that snowy battlefield in Pennsylvania. I saw over 2 million people willing to face the freezing cold, the overwhelming crowds, the TSA checkpoints, and the hour long lines to ride the Metro. I’m talking about large scale political participation, something that (unfortunately) doesn’t happen that often in American politics.

POST CONTRIBUTED BY: DR. MARY HALLOCK MORRIS, assistant professor of political science and acting director of the Master of Public Administration Program.

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