‘Such a time of history and change, we are going into the light’

THE crossroads America passed through this week comes to life in many places but few capture it better than the junction of U Street and 14th in Washington DC.

The site’s storied and often difficult past has been intertwined with the struggle for racial equality.

Traditionally the city’s black communities in the east and white neighbourhoods in the west were separated and connected by 14th Street while the jazz bars and studios along U Street were close to the epicentre of the African American cultural renaissance and struggle for empowerment since the 1920s.

The junction played host to some of the first anti-racism pickets after World War One and when Reverend Martin Luther King was assassinated it was flash-point for a violent residents riot.

Now an understated plaque informs those waiting to cross either street of the pain this site has witnessed.

“This has been a fault line in the struggle for equal rights for black America in the 20th century,” it says.

Yesterday something different was in the air and at this crossroads people were looking in a new direction.

Those who waited at the bus shelters, themselves an historical symbol of a segregated transit system, were hopeful for the future they believe is possible under President Barack Obama.

Pat Hill, who grew up in the black part of Washington said the transformation which has turned the street chic is nothing compared to the potential of what can grow from the election of Obama.

“I think it will be a process, it won’t happen quickly. We didn’t get ourselves into this overnight and we will not get out of it overnight.

“But he will be better received, he is more of a humanitarian, people will support him more. It is such a time of history and change, we are going into the light,” she said.

Americans expect to be seen differently now that George W Bush has left the scene.

Standing outside the Frank G Reeves Centre on 14th Street, built on the site of the 1968 riot and named after a famous civil rights’ lawyer, Nathaniel Shannon said he felt proud of his country again.

For the first time yesterday he pinned a large American flag on the back of his jacket. Nathaniel had travelled from Portland, Oregon on the Pacific coast to stand on the National Mall for the inauguration ceremony in the belief this was the most significant moment in his life — apart from September 11, 2001.

“As a white American I still relate to Obama better. I see him as a true American because we are all immigrants and he represents that.”

For many people who attended the inauguration, Obama’s success was not just a victory for civil rights but also a cultural phenomenon.

On one corner of the junction a 12-foot graffiti outline of the new president looks down on flier stuck to a lamppost advertising last night’s Inauguration Booty Party headlined by DJ Nasty.

Similarly the galleries and thrift stores have their windows adorned with presidential paraphernalia.

And despite all the fears for jobs, the economy was not on the tips of people’s tongues yesterday. Instead they appeared content to let it settle in and pondered something even greater.

America is a religious country, both Pat and Nathaniel described Obama as a blessing from God.

Similarly Virgil Johnson said the out-pouring of happiness witnessed by more than one million people in Washington on Tuesday represented something more powerful than any policy decisions the new administration are likely to make.

“It is more significant than people are making out because I think a change like that you can put no value on. Where there was despair now there is hope and there is no better joy than hope.

“I believe Obama is a God-fearing man and I will pray for him. God is in control and I think he will bring this country to a better place,” he said.