When I was a child, we visited an old aunt of mine who lived on top of a mountain in the boonies of Northern Virginia.
She was an uneducated woman, but she could cook like nobody’s business. And she often talked about the hard times, the old days she still remembered so well. She’d sing an old spiritual called “The Little Black Train’s A-Comin’” with a lilt in her voice and a sad, wistful look in her dark, faded eyes.

This weekend I watched a train slowly make its way toward Washington.

My mother told me about hearing world-famous contralto Marian Anderson on an Easter Sunday, singing to an integrated audience on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, because she’d been denied permission to sing in Constitution Hall by the D.A.R. Having been raised in the South, my mother knew all about closed doors, and that moment in time stayed with her for her entire life.

Those doors have been opened.

I didn’t support Barack Obama because he was Black. But it IS significant that he is, and seeing the Inauguration approach does bring on an amazing wash of emotions. I find myself thinking of all the people I wish could’ve lived to see this historic moment.
There are SO many who worked for it, who cried, who fought, who sacrificed. So many who, like Dr. King, had a Dream, and paved the way, generation after generation, to make even the possibility real. On the shoulders of giants—yes. But also of sharecroppers, factory workers, protestors, and footsoldiers of every race, age, and religious persuasion. People who believed in the words this country was built on, and were determined to make them true.

I’ve watched part of the celebration so far, heard from people on the sidelines from California, Texas, Jamaica, Denmark, England, Puerto Rico, all coming to celebrate what they hope is a new beginning. I saw George Lucas walk casually along, then stand to join the rest of the crowd among the ageless monuments of Washington. I watched history being reflected in that enormous pool before the Monument, and thought of all those who’d gone on before.
I’ve never seen such a diversity of people at an inaugural celebration. They looked cold as hell in that frigid weather, but it warmed my heart.

A sign of progress? Yes. And yet…I catch myself holding my breath sometimes when I see the President Elect in a crowd of people…

I hope this Presidency will move America forward, as it has The Dream.
I hope for better days to come for this country.
I hope.