She was a black woman.
She was working.
She was a part of.
She came.
She saw.
Ultimately, she was conquered.
She was a black woman.
She was working.
She was a part of.
She came.
She saw.
Ultimately, she was conquered.
Others came with best friends.
However, for some, like Tamii Harris, 47, of Park Manor, the inauguration of America's first black president was important enough to go it alone.
Tamii Harris, 47, of Park Manor, shows off the official inauguration t-shirt distributed by the tour group operator to her travelers on a "Road trip to the White House."
"From the beginning, I wanted to go, and everyone else was flaking out," Harris said.
"I'm going because I owe it to myself. I owe it to Obama. I owe it to my mother and grandmother and Rosa [Parks] and Corretta [Scott King] and all the other women whose shoulders I'm standing on," she said.
"I want to be able to tell my own children and grandchildren I was there."
]]>And right behind them were the street vendors.
No, this wasn't Washington, D.C. Not yet. This was 87th & the Dan Ryan, where the Frazier family of Marquette Park gathered with 96 fellow travelers to hop two charter buses bound for D.C. on a three-day "Road Trip to the White House."
A vendor boards the "Road trip to the White House" charter bus to sell her wares.
]]> Vendors had set up camp at 87th & the Dan Ryan, laying in waiting for hundreds of inauguration-goers traveling to Washington, D.C. by charter buses which departed from the busy South Side mall over the course of four days.The night before, several vendors told us, they'd made a killing on 10 tour buses chartered by U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Chicago), which had left from the Jewel parking lot just after 10 p.m. to drive through the night, planning to arrive just in time for the inauguration.
State Rep. Connie Howard's tour buses -- which also had planned to drive through the night, but arriving just in time to view the inauguration ceremonies on TV screens at a D.C. hotel reception -- had similarly provided an ample souvenir buyers' market the day before, they said.
On the Fraziers' two buses, the vendors made out like fat rats, convincing the South Side family of nine and their fellow travelers that the same merchandise they were being offered would certainly be twice as expensive on D.C. soil.
The question: How many "souvenirs from the inauguration" were given friends and family upon the inauguration-goers' return?
Fantastic and fulfilling, but freezing.
Overwhelmed, overjoyed.
They'd ridden a charter bus back to Chicago after going to Washington for President Obama's inauguration. Afterward, the 103 Chicago area participants in this particular "Road Trip to the White House" bubbled over trying to describe the experience -- and how they believe it will help shape their futures.
As they returned home -- with memories and souvenir buttons decorated with Obama's visage and emblazoned with the words "I was there" -- and settled back into life in Chicago, they talked of what they'd witnessed and spoke with a sense of ownership of their new president.
Among them was Linda Vaughn, 65, of East Chicago.
"She's the primary reason I'm here," Vaughn said of her 8-year-old granddaughter Chynna Vaughn.
Linda Vaughn, 65, of East Chicago, is the third woman from the left, with the gray and purple head scarf. Her 8-year-old granddaughter, Chynna Vaughn, is on the right, wearing the black sweater.
]]> "Having grown up in Georgia at a time when we couldn't buy a hamburger at F.W. Woolworth's without fearing someone of a different color would insult us or throw us out, and having a granddaughter who doesn't even have to think of such things, it was important for me she be here to see something I never, ever would have envisioned in my lifetime -- or in hers," said Vaughn."I believe this is the single most monumental event in the cultural fabric of our history. And, for me, it was indescribably gratifying."
Like most who thronged to Washington, Mario Christian, who came from the South Side Ashburn neighborhood, and a cousin, aunt and two friends had no tickets.
Mario Christian, 25, of the Ashburn neighborhood, talks of his inauguration experience on the bus ride back.
"A man walked up and asked if we had tickets," said Christian, 27. "He said his wife worked for the State Department, and he gave us tickets to the front lawn of the Capitol.
"I had to fight back tears. I was trying to be strong. But I was just in disbelief that I was watching a black man become president. It filled me with hope that America really is open to change, as far as giving people a second chance and looking toward who a person is as opposed to the color of their skin. It just inspired me to be a better human being."
Mario becomes emotional in trying to describe what the trip has meant to him, after his fellow travelers asked that he lead them in prayer on the journey back.
Heurnton A. Brown, III, 57, of North Lawndale, and his girlfriend Suzetta Whitaker, 45, also ended up having a stranger hand them a pair of VIP unlimited-access tickets.
Heurnton A. Brown, III, is the man wearing a "Real Men Cook" baseball cap.
"Love was flowing back and forth," Brown said. "We walked and talked to every person -- black, Asian, white, everybody. The warmth of the person next to you blocked the cold. I left there truly feeling we are 'one nation under God, indivisible,' ready to work together to make liberty real for all."
Another family got a different kind of break when, after being directed to one closed gate after another, they found a government building letting people in.
"We ended up watching the inauguration on television in a cozy and warm cafeteria, with about 200 Obama supporters," said Eurydice Crockett, 41, of the South Loop, who was with her 65-year-old mother.
For Eurydice Crockett, 41, of the South Loop, even with the cold and exhaustive walking, the experience was unforgettable.
"Before that, security were herding us like cattle," she said. "Finally watching it, all I could think of is how this man came from a single-parent household with meager means but strong family values, and worked hard and passionately to accomplish his goals. It made me feel that America has begun to heal from its wicked past, and that with hard work, truly anything is possible."
Crystal Morrell, 26, came from Roseland with her best friend. She'd been afraid to seek time off from her accounting job at BryceDowney, the law firm where she said she is the only black employee.
"But they encouraged me to go," she said. "I ended up very far from the Mall, but all I wanted was to be on the same soil as our new president and celebrate with people from all over the world.
"When our president finally said, 'So help me God,' I cried, and, in silence, I whispered, 'Dr. King, your dream has finally been fulfilled.' It changed my life. I came home determined to volunteer and mentor, and do my part in the fight towards change, because it's going to take all of us to change the face of America."
Crystal Morrell, 26, of Roseland, came back inspired to do her part toward change by volunteering and mentoring in her community.
]]>Purely Destinations owner Ivory Coats, 25, initially knew only that she was going.
"The night he was elected, I said, 'I'm definitely going to the inauguration!' '' Coats said. "Then I said, 'Ivory, why just you? People are going to want to be a part of history.' "
Purely Destinations owner Ivory Coats
]]> The Frazier family of Marquette Park is taking nine members to the inauguration.Coats' South Chicago travel firm is taking 103 people -- some with inauguration tickets, most without -- on the three-day trip.
For under $400, the Fraziers got charter bus transportation, two nights at a Best Western, and an inauguration T-shirt.
"Because millions were going, I knew the flights were going to get pretty ridiculous, and I also knew that because this is such a historic occasion, there were going to be a lot of people doing trips, and price-gouging," Coats said. "I really looked to create a trip the average person could afford, because that's really what this is about -- the people, the average people Barack Obama talks about -- taking part in the legislative process."
She settled on two buses -- underestimating interest. "I put it out on a Tuesday. By Thursday, we were sold out."
She focused her hotel search on small towns away from D.C. "We knew Alexandria, Baltimore and all surrounding cities would be expensive," she said, finding rooms in Denton, Md., and Smyrna, Md.
During the 12-hour trip there and the return Wednesday, Coats will show movies like "Eyes on the Prize" and the Sun-Times' Election Night DVD. Tuesday, she'll deliver her group to the inauguration, where they'll be on their own.
"I think it is going to be fun," Coats said.
Purely Destinations owner Ivory Coats
]]>Margie Edwards, 78, of Englewood, has vivid memories of growing up during segregation, of Jim Crow laws and the newcomer called King, of marching hand-in-hand with strangers in Selma.
So when a newcomer came along 45 years later, she was skeptical.
"I said, 'Boy, he don't stand a snowball's chance in hell,' " said Edwards, whose daughter Pamela Frazier is taking Edwards' eight grandchildren and great-grandchildren to Washington for Barack Obama's inauguration as president.
"But I see him one time, and he's got 5,000 people with him, then the next time you looked, he had 50,000 people. It just kept mushrooming," she said. "That's when you think to yourself, 'This young man has got to have something on the ball.' "
]]> Edwards won't be making the "Road Trip to the White House," a three-day event by a South Side tour operator involving two days on a bus there and back, and hours on the National Mall for the ticketless.That much standing and sitting didn't sit well. And her sight's going.
But she sure wishes she could go.
"Oh, God, don't you know it, honey! The night he won, I just sat here and cried and cried.
"I said, 'Lord, to think I could live to see a black man be president!' You know, you always say that anything can happen, but you have just a little doubt. Then, when it comes to pass, you say, 'Thank God almighty. We're free at last!'
"I think that he was chosen by God. And I hope when he makes his speech, that the first thing he says is, 'Thank God.' Because I do believe that this is his time, this is his season, and that he can make the change he's been talking about."
Edwards was an only child. She said her parents gave her the best they had. She went to college in Atlanta but got homesick in two years.
She came home, met a man, started having kids -- three girls. Later, as a single mother and good at bookkeeping, she got a string of good jobs herself -- at the then-Passavant Hospital, now Northwestern; at CBS Radio; the Hyde Park YMCA, and the now-defunct Kragness Animal Hospital, where she retired after 20 years.
She has rented the same house in Englewood for 22 years, sharing it with a bull mastiff named Kodi; Rink, the cat, and Bruce, a goldfish.
On a recent day, she recalled the events of her life she thought never would have added up to America inaugurating its first black president.
"I remember visiting Cincinnati as a a kid, and a water faucet that was so filthy, with a 'colored' sign on it, and a clean one to the side that said 'whites only,' " she said.
"They had restaurants called cafes, with two sides. On one, blacks could come in and buy food, but couldn't eat. On the other side, they had little stools where you could sit and eat, and that was the white side.
"I remember when I was in Mount Airy, Ga., and the circus would come to town. When they left, they would leave the cages on wheels there to use as the black folks' jail.
"I still remember sitting by the radio, as they reported about Gov. George Wallace standing at the door of Alabama U., declaring no black children would step across, as those two kids tried to get in.
"And the Selma march. ... It was scary, but everyone was just holding hands, and you didn't know whose hands you were holding because there were black, white, Chinese, Mexican, everyone. You were just a dot in the crowd."
Her family, the Fraziers, will be just a dot, too, when Great-Grandma is glued to the TV Tuesday. But grandkids promise blow-by-blows.
"This black man's got his work cut out for him. You got a lot of discrimination today," Edwards said. "You got some diehard people that's not going to ever change, and then some changing slowly. He's going to have to ask the Lord to make a way for everybody because God's the only one who can change us."
]]>So the 5-foot-10 high school junior was particularly gleeful when Barack Obama won -- not just because he made history, but because his soon-to-be first lady also has height (almost 5-foot-11).
"Michelle Obama is going to make a great first lady," said Ryaan, a forward and center on Chicago International Charter School's basketball team.
"She represents tall well. She's pretty, smart and very confident. She exudes self-respect and power. When I see her, I know there ain't no stopping me."
]]>Just about every Saturday between August and Nov. 4, 2008, the two could be found door to door canvassing for then-candidate Barack Obama in Hammond, Ind.
"We helped him win," said Semaja. "I'm excited. Now we're going to Washington to see him be the first black president. I can't wait."
Semaja Frazier, 8, and her cousin Brian Jackson, 8, beside a Barack Obama project in the hallway of their school.
]]> Oh, the two Chicago Public Schools students didn't volunteer on their own. They were dragged at first by grandma Pamela Frazier, who's taking nine family members by bus to next week's swearing-in.
Family matriarch Pamela Frazier on the campaign trail in Hammond, Ind.
But the 8-year-old cousins, students at Chicago International Charter School's Washington Park campus, caught the campaign bug.
Semaja leaves a house in Hammond, Ind. where she has dropped off Obama campaign literature and asked the homeowner to vote for Obama.
"No, I wouldn't rather have been out playing because I don't go outside that much," says Brian, who lives with his mom and sister in Englewood and wants to be a cop.
8-year-old Bryan poses with an Obama lawn sign he just installed for a homeowner in Hammond, Ind.
"It was so, so much fun knocking on people's doors and asking them to vote for Obama. Some people said they didn't know who they were voting for, so we just gave them leaflets and stuff."
And when folks told them they wanted no part of their candidate?
"We'd just thank them anyway," chirped Semaja, who with her mom and sister share a Marquette Park two-flat with Grandma. "And if they said they were voting for Obama, we'd say, 'Congratulations!' "
Semaja checks off which houses the Frazier family has canvassed and which doors are still left to knock on.
Of course, it's not just seeing their candidate get keys to the White House these two are looking forward to. It is a road trip, after all, and there'll be singing and eating out and staying up all night.
But since the odds of ever meeting a president -- black or otherwise -- aren't high, Semaja, who loves to read and write and wants to be a teacher, figured she'd put in her request now.
"I was really, really, really happy when he won because we worked really hard," Semaja said. "Now I just want him to build a library by our house, help people go to good schools, stop the wars, stop the violence in Chicago, and make the world a better place."
]]>
The city seems normal before you near the Capitol.
The throngs start to grow as you approach.
]]>
Semaja Frazier and Bryan Jackson, both 8, walk ahead of one of the bands headed to participate in the inaugural parade.
A man shows his patriotism.
A sniper on the dome of the Museum of Natural History.
People raise cameras above their heads, hoping to catch shots of the inaugural proceedings they can't see.
Far left rear: Some climb up in trees to try and get a glimpse of the far away proceedings.
The crowd is every race, age and creed.
All heads seemed to bow in unison as the Rev. Rick Warren gives the invocation.
That's me.
An inauguration-goer follows his official program.
Eight-year-old Bryan Jackson complains that he can't see the president.
Asia and Bryan's mom, Laquita Wright, 28, and her sister, Ryaan and Semaja's mom, Lataunya Frazier, 38, enjoy the moment.
Thirteen-year-old Mylon Frazier is wide-eyed as President Barack Obama starts to speak.
Many came pushing elderly parents and the disabled in wheelchairs.
Eight-year-old Semaja shows her glee as she clutches her souvenir flag.
Lataunya Frazier embraces her children, Ryaan, 17, and Semaja, 8.
After the inauguration is over and the crowd begins to disperse, others in the rear can actually see where it all took place.
A woman in the dispersing crowd does a jig, chanting "It's official! It's official!"
The Frazier grandchildren pose with a souvenir, the Washington Post special election edition.
One family with a baby finds a spot under a tree to take in the inaugural ceremonies.
A helicopter takes the Bushes, reportedly, away after the ceremonies.
Two celebrants show their pride in their new president,
This man's sign speaks for itself.
]]>
Pamela Frazier listens to President Barack Obama's inauguration speech.
(Washington, D.C.) -- For many average folks that traveled here for the inauguration of the nation's first black president, today was about the battle, in so many ways.
The battle for racial equality. The battle for their share of the American Dream. The battle just to get onto the National Mall.
]]> The Frazier family of Marquette Park set out on their mission Tuesday to bear witness to history, three generations together -- matriarch Pamela Frazier, her two children and six grandchildren.
The Fraziers disembark from their designated charter bus parking area on U Street and begin the two-mile walk to the Capitol for the inauguration ceremonies.
And they did, eventually, with Pamela's hanky chasing tears as Obama accepted the presidency.
"It was emotional," she explained later. "Because I had my grandchildren there, and I could just envision what their lives were going to be because of the change our new president is going to bring to the world.
"I could feel them internalizing everything, wanting to see him, wanting to hear him, and looking at their young, mesmerized faces, I knew that they got it."
Sixteen-year-old Michael, III videotapes President Barack Obama's inauguration speech.
Seventeen-year-old Ryaan Frazier hoists her sister, Semaja Frazier, 8, atop her shoulder during President Barack Obama's speech, so Semaja can try to get a glimpse of him.
Ryaan and her cousin Bryan Jackson, 8, salute as the U.S. Marine Corps Band starts to play.
But it was only through luck that the Fraziers, among 103 people from the Chicago area who attended a three-day group bus trip themed "Road Trip to the White House," saw anything at all.
And their experience was perhaps representative of the inauguration for the masses.
Unanticipated obstacles got them to the Capitol at 9 a.m., two hours later than suggested. The west mall was already closed, and at the east mall, they hit a brick wall of what seemed millions of people.
Attending the inauguration with the Fraziers were a shoulder-to-shoulder sea of people as far as the eyes could see.
After two hours of trying to maneuver, they gave up.
Finding a spot among the thousands sharing the same fate, they resigned themselves to bearing witness only through the loud speakers that at that distance, began crackling with the day's main event.
The family finds a spot outside the gates that have closed off the National Mall, and settle in.
Then suddenly, security at the gate for those holding silver tickets permitting them onto the mall, gave up the fight to check tickets, just as the introductions began. Seeing their chance, the ticket have-nots swarmed forward, the Frazier children pushing too, with the adults close behind.
Michael III notices the crowd surging into the Mall and takes off to join it, calling his family to come on.
As security gives up guarding one gate to the National Mall, the crowd sees its chance, and makes a break for it, surging onto the Mall.
In the end, they were close enough to catch obstructed glimpses of TV screens, but clear transmission of the proceedings.
Young faces were glued. Ryaan, 17, Michael III, 16, Mylon, 13, Asia, 12, and Brian and Semaja, both 8, were in a trance. With the crowd, they hooped and hollered: "Obama! Obama!"
"It was spiritual," said another member of their tour group, Farid Shabazz of Naperville, who came with his girlfriend, Eurydice Crockett of the South Loop, and her mother, Hilda Crockett of Hyde Park.
"It was like a jubilee with my ancestors. All the questions were answered today about what you can or cannot do. No more about what we can't do. It's now about what we can do."
On the Mall, the Fraziers and the crowd are content just to hear the proceedings, even if they can only catch occasional glimpses of what's happening on the Capitol steps.
Ryaan and Semaja's mom, Lataunya Frazier, 38, takes in the moment.
And the message of can was reiterated many times during the day, especially during Obama's inauguration speech. "Yes, we can!" the Frazier children yelled at the prerequisite moments.
And yes, they did. The Frazier clan witnessed history. And they came away changed.
"I felt good," said Michael, III. "Because a black man was making history. Barack Obama is making a change for black people. They always point to the bad about us, but he has lifted us up, forever. I'm glad I didn't miss this."
Pamela Frazier can't hold back the tears, after President Obama recites the final: "So help me God."
Twelve-year-old Asia Wright gets into the moment with Grandma.
With the delays yesterday morning, the Frazier family and their tour group on a "Road trip to the White House" were quite antsy by the second rest stop last night to refuel the bus, in Breezewood, Pa.
But as the "Are we close yets" started to come, the Trailways bus driver got lost. His GPS went haywire. So the group didn't pull up at their Best Western hotel in Denton, Md. (half the group continued to a Best Western in Smyrna, Md.) until after 5 a.m.
]]> And with all the anticipated traffic into Washington, D.C. this morning, they had to be back on the bus at 6:30 a.m. Folks were tired and quiet. Some of the 103 travelers clearly were not happy, but resigned.Just when you thought all that could go wrong had gone wrong, we found the hotel had no hot water. Best Western's switchboard lit up with angry calls. There was nothing they could do, the twenty-something lady with an afropuff at the front desk explained. Everyone staying at the hotel about 90 minutes outside of D.C. was up at the same time -- the crack of dawn -- trying to leave for D.C.
Finally, we are all back on the bus, in various degrees of rejuvenation.
As our graying driver, Bob Arne, pulls ioff, the cheers from yesterday morning go out again.
"Yay! Obama! Here we come!"
It is now 8 a.m., and we are crossing the Chesaspeake Bay bridge from Maryland into D.C., along with what seems a million other cars.
The bay is fozen. The bridge is magnificent. The sun is shining.
This tour group, we, are filled with anticipation. There is something in the air. You can feel it.
]]>
Bryan Jackson, 8, shares a seat with Grandma on the roadtrip.
Stream of Consciousness:
We've been driving now for nearly 10 hours.
Ryaan Frazier, 17, and cousin Mylon Frazier, 13.
We're on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It's dark, but the lights are pretty.
The loud chatter and politics chatter of the first three hours died down to low murmurs a third of the way into the trip, and by the time we made our first rest stop sometime after 6 p..m. and hit the road again, it had become quiet.
Sleep had taken over in most sections of the bus.
Some still have their crazy red, white and blue hats pulled over drooping eyes.
South Sider Crystal Morrell, 26, traveling with her best friend, her best friend's mother, and the mother's best friend, shows off her inauguration hat.
Gwendolyn Martin, 50, of Roseland, traveling with best friend Louise Patrick, 64, shows off her own version of an inauguration hat.
The Richfield, Ohio rest stop was jammed full of tour buses -- about a dozen. And guess what? They were all headed toward the inauguration, including several bus loads of students from the University of Michigan, in Flint.
The air was charged at the rest stop, as folks woke up and picked up right where they left off, about what they thought tomorrow -- and that moment -- was going to be like.
Semaja Frazier, 8, chats up her aunt, Marquita Wright, 28.
Semaja's mother, Lataunya Frazier, 38, poses for the camera.
Strangers spoke to strangers, with the familiarity of a common purpose.
We ran into snow in Indiana, a blizzard in Ohio, and plenty of clear roads in-between.
Asia Wright, 12, mugs for the camera, while her cousin, Michael Frazier III, tries to get lost in his Ipod.
We've watched "Eyes on the Prize" in silence, with the tsk! tsk! tsk! being murmured in unison during key parts of the famous documentary about America's civil rights struggle
and shame. Parts like the Emmett Till story, and the story behind the riot at 'Ole Miss, marked as it were by the battle between the nation's president, later assassinated, and Mississippi's governor.
Now, lighter fare is playing...........Tyler Perry. Of course.
The Frazier family prepares to board the bus.
After weeks of preparation and mounting excitement, nine members of the Frazier family of Marquette Park left this morning on their "Road trip to the White House."
But they say anything worth having is worth waiting for.
And after weeks of preparation and mounting excitement, Pamela, her two children and six grandchildren, would have to wait a little longer -- three hours, to be exact.
One of the two Trailways buses broke down en route from Rockford to pick up their tour group at 87th & the Dan Ryan. Trailways then drew the group's ire by promising to get the second bus to them within an hour -- which turned into two hours and then three hours.
The Fraziers and their group wait out a three-hour delay leaving on their "Road trip to the White House."
Catch the Fraziers featured on NBC Chicago
"I'm just as frustrated as you are," Cotes told her increasingly antsy travelers over and over. "As badly as you want to get to D.C. is just how badly I want to get there."
Finally, what started in November 2008 -- after Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's historic landslide win inspired matriarch Pamela Frazier to declare she was going to the inauguration and taking her children and grandchildren with her -- culminated with their bus pulling off Monday, onto the Dan Ryan and toward the I-90 Skyway and the East Coast.
Cheers went up. "Obama, here we come!" the Fraziers shouted.
Then prayer went out, as 57 heads bowed in unison.
"Heavenly father we just thank you for this opportunity. Please take us to our destination safely," Gwendolyn Martin, 50, of Roseland, said, leading the group in prayer.
"Let us be filled with gratitude for the occasion we are about to be a part of.
"And please bless our new president."
Pamela and her two daughters, Lataunya Frazier and Marquita Wright; and six grandchildren, Ryaan, Semaja, Michael III and Mylon Frazier; and Asia Wright and Bryan Jackson, had arrived at 8 a.m. sharp at 87th Street. Whole rolls of film had been used up even before they'd gone one mile, and not the three-hour delay nor snow on the way could dampen their enthusiasm.
"We're so excited. We've been up since 5 o'clock this morning trying to get out of the house," said 58-year-old Pamela.
"We've been packing all night long, and we've been shopping all week, buying everything we need so we can stay warm in Washington, because we plan on staying all day in Washington tomorrow, trying to get a glimpse of Obama," she said as the bus rolled, the movie "Eye On The Prize" beginning to play.
"Me and all the family, we're just having a great time. This is the trip of a lifetime."
Fly guy (literally) Marquis Wright, 28, is a flight attendant with Southwest Airlines who got stuck on the fringes of Grant Park Nov. 4, 2008, and found a memorable experience.
Marquis Wright and his twin, Marquita, are the youngest of five children of Pamela Frazier.
The 28-year-old has been employed with Southwest Airlines since 2001, working his way up from ramp agent to operations staff to flight attendant.
A graduate of Kenwood Academy, he attended Northern Illinois University for a year before transferring to Harold Washington Community College. He attended Harold Washington a year and a half when Southwest participated in a job fair at the school.
He applied, was hired, and left school for a dream job with good pay and benefits.
As a flight attendant, he flies for free with his airline, so he flew into Washington, D.C. Friday with friends who also work for Southwest. (No other seats were available as flights were booked solid after Friday).
Like others already in D.C., Marquis and his friends have been celebrating since arrival.
Here, he recounts his experience on that historic Nov. 4 night -- an experience that inspired him and a lot of other Generation Xers to attend the inauguration.
Where were you on election night?
]]>"We could only get as far as 22nd Street, so we stopped at this little local bar called Reggie's, at 21st and State Street. It ended up being a very nice time. They were like having 25 cents wings, so we ordered wings galore, and drank and enjoyed ourselves.
"Toward the end of the night, when they showed the numbers, and we basically knew Obama was a shoo-in, you could feel the shock and excitement. Then when they announced it, the place went up in an uproar.
"People were screaming and hugging and crying. We were Caucasians, Mexicans, African Americans, and we were all just hugging one another. It was like everyone there had been waiting for this. And then the owner popped open champagne and sent a round to everyone in the bar. How I felt? Overwhelmed! Ecstatic! Proud! Relieved! It was like, 'Wow!' It wasn't what I planned, but it really turned out to be a lot of fun.
"What I feel now going into the inauguration is like, the time was due, and I have to be there to witness it. To know that I have little nieces and nephews who will also be there to witness it, is overwhelming. I know I'll shed a tear or two.
"I'll be at the inauguration with the same six friends I was with the night he was elected. We actually took the 15th through the 25th off. We're basically going to party the whole weekend away. We don't plan to sleep. Then Sunday and Monday, we're going to watch the city fill up.
"It kind of takes me back to when my mother sent me and my two brothers to D.C. for the Million Man March. Anything that has to do with history, my mother is a true believer. She's all on it. She's got your reservations, and she's got your names put in, and she's got you all set and ready to go.
"I do plan on communicating with my family when they get here, and trying to meet up with them. But if the traffic and crowds don't allow it, then we'll have to share the experience via text. Like the night he won, me and my friends were all texting each other, 'We did it!' This time, we'll be texting, 'It's official!' And even if I don't hook up with my family out there on the National Mall, I know I'll feel their presence."
]]>
Michael Frazier, Jr. never thought he'd live to see a black president.
Inset: His brother, Marquis Wright, a flight attendant, is taking a week off to attend the inauguration.
Michael Frazier Jr. describes himself as so many other Americans -- living
paycheck to paycheck.
So the 36-year-old South Sider says he can't afford time off from his Museum
of Science & Industry job to join his family on their "Road Trip to the
White House."
His mother, Pamela Frazier of Marquette Park, is taking nine family members
on the three-day bus trip to the Capitol.
Going are Michael's two sons, Michael III, 16, and Mylon, 13, who he
believes need to witness the inauguration of a black president.
"I love my boys to death," says the father, struggling to keep them in an
apartment in upwardly mobile Beverly with his wife of 15 years.
"I'm grateful they'll be there to witness history -- a president sworn in
that looks like them. I never thought I'd see it," he says.
See editorial by Black Star Project founder Phillip Jackson on state of young black males
Email your answer to his question
]]>"I just have to go," says Marquis.
"I have to give honor and thanks to this black man for even allowing himself
to run, against the odds. You know it wasn't supposed to be. But through
Barack Obama, Martin Luther King's dream -- everything King fought for and
believed in -- is coming true."
Marquis says he expects to feel the way he did during the 1995 Million Man
March, which Pamela also made sure her sons participated in. He says, "It
will be emotional."
His brother says Obama has given him hope.
While Marquis left college after 21Ž2 years when hired by Southwest, Michael,
a DuSable High grad, has worked blue-collar jobs the past 20 years -- a
Bennigan's waiter, a Mitsubishi Motors plant worker, housekeeping at the
Congress Hotel, a laborer at the Chicago Cubs warehouse.
Michael's goal at one time, however, had been to go into electrical
engineering.
"I have to work hard to take care of my family. It's always a paycheck from
being homeless," he says.
"When Obama won, I wanted to scream, shout, everything. It made me realize
it's never too late. I want my sons to be able to do things that I couldn't,
to not have to struggle so much," the father says.
"That's why I'm so glad they're going, so they can see and know, 'I can do
anything.' And though I can't be there, a part of me will be, in them. I've
told them I want to know everything that happens."