A Beautiful Experience: part 2 of 2
by
Okeyo Ajamu Jumal
All Rights Reserved
The Lincoln Monument
The virtue of patience was about to receive its severest challenge. It had taken ten hours plus to fill the Mall and surrounding streets with millions of people, but after the ceremonies over, the same millions of people head for the trains and subways all at once! And not looking forward to being crushed again like wet jellybeans in a candy dish, walking the two miles down the slowly emptying Mall to visit the Lincoln Monument seemed to be the more spacious option. As I approached the frozen solid Reflecting Pools fronting of the monument, it was clear by the size of the crowd, numbering in the tens of thousands, that trekking to this monument was a very popular idea amongst the multitude of visitors on this inauguration day. Involved in conversation while waiting, it was also clear that Barack Obama’s high praise for the Sixteenth President had assisted in rekindling interest in Lincoln’s legacy and Obama’s appearance at the Monument during the Weekend Inauguration Concert had further enhanced Lincoln with young generations.
Still others shared their memories of that snowy day in 1981, or was it 1982 when they were at the Lincoln Monument and Steve Wonder sang “Happy Birthday” [Dr. Martin Luther King] from his album Hotter than July, a song that would catapult the day Dr. King came to be into a national holiday and world party. There were other contemporary reasons that pulled, like a magnet, many in this large crowd to the Lincoln Monument, one that caught me completely by surprise.
I had been here before, but on this visit, I took more time. Just the sculpture alone is a powerful, intriguing work of art. Carved into stone in one wing is his Second Inaugural Address and in the other wing set in stone is America’s greatest historical document, The Gettysburg Address. However, conspicuous by its absence, the Emancipation Proclamation is not to be found or mentioned. Pondering the possible reason for this obvious omission, perhaps national amnesia in a segregated America when the Monument was built in 1922, a crowd lining-up on the Monument steps caught my attention.
As I approached, a man and his family, from Mexico Cit
y, asked if I would take their picture. When I mentioned that the Lincoln sculpture wasn’t in the frame, he gestured that it wasn’t a problem and as I handed him back his camera, the same request was made by Japan and then Sweden. Now curious, I asked Mexico City what was the significance,
“This is where Dr. King stood!”
Looking both surprised and enlightened, I listened as he continued,
“…We came for the inauguration, but we had to come here, right here.”
With great certainty and in the near future, a monument will rise here on the National Mall honoring Dr. King. It will most surely become the primary destination for many visitors from this country and from around the world. But for some of today’s visitors and many more to follow, their hajj to pay tribute to Dr. King will end at this nondescript, unmarked place somewhere on the steps of Lincoln Monument where there pilgrims will metaphorically climb to the top of a prodigious mountain, circle the kaaba sevens times and bath in the Ganges. They will honor the Prince of Peace, not from a spanking new monument, but from an undefined spot, where Dr. King stood and delivered some of his most profound words.
DC Irving
I have a dinner invite, crab-cakes and other good stuff with writer Swaggie Coleman and her family, which is sounding real good right about now. But this delicious sounding dinner party was forty miles away in Baltimore and there’s a crush of people headed where I’m headed, the Foggy Bottom subway station. I’m standing here thinking, how about another plan B, when I think I hear a familiar voice call my name,
“Jumal!”
This was impossible I thought to myself as I looked in the direction of the voice calling. Nimat and myself, who’s parents I’ve known since high school, surprised each other when rushing to our flight gates at LAX and finding out we were both headed to the same place. After exchanging cell numbers, the comment was made of maybe meeting on the Mall—then we both laughed. Finding each other amongst the millions expected—not gonna happen! But a million to one would have been a a good bet, guess who’s waving at me from a bench where she was seated with friends, Nimat!
After our greeting of mutual disbelief, Nimat introduced me to her uncle Sultan from Georgia and a local man who they’d just made acquaintance with, Irving from D.C. I joined the group seated at benches facing across from each other. Immediately, I was captivated by the presence of Irving from D.C. Irving was a native of D.C., a partly-retired taxi driver and local historian of sorts, not of government or politicians, but of the everyday people in the neighborhoods. He exuded a rock solid love his hometown, a love with that same gritty pride found in the lyrics of that old blues tune, Tobacco Road, “…but I love you ‘cause you home.”
I shared with DC my predicament and he said he’d hook me up with a taxi ride to an outlaying MARC station and I’d be on a train to Baltimore in no time. Problem solved. Now with time to conversate, I’d joined the party as DC was talking about when as a boy of six or seven back in 1939, his parents brought him to the Mall to hear a lady named Marian Anderson sing from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Irving went on to say that he was too young to understand what it was all about, but what stuck in his memory about that day was seeing so many grown folks crying, later finding out that they crying because they were so damn happy.
“The next time I was on this Mall, I came for the March on Washington. A lot of them folks on that day were right out the cotton fields, still wearing overalls when they got off them buses. And after all that marching and walking in the hot sun, they pulled off they shoes and rested their feet in the mirror pools. They made a lot out of that at the time, saying it was disrespectful, but them country folks thought that’s what the pools were for, bless their hearts.” You could tell that DC enjoyed telling stories he’d told more then a few times,
“…But to hear Dr. King speak was something. I was standing right in the same spot were I stood as a boy in ’39! That Dr. King made you feel all good inside, you know what I mean, like you were somebody.”
DC had our attention as he continued talking about Dr. King, how he knew back then he’d been apart of something very special. His conversation flowed right into the next time he came to the Mall, standing in the same spot, by the pool of course, when taking part in the Million Man March. Being part of the Million Man March was a comment often heard as veterans of the that March were generously mixed in today’s massive crowd. They reminisced proudly of participating in the 1995 March and DC Irving spoke with that same reverence,
“Some people want to forget the Million Man March because of the man who organized it. But you got to give the Minister Louis X his props, over a million people came to hear him speak. And you got to admire his courage, he wasn’t afraid to say the things we needed to hear…I saw a whole lot of men standing tall that day and you could feel a pride in community long after that March was over.”
It wasn’t long before DC was talking about today and Barack Obama. Still holding a small American flag he’d received on his early morning arrival, you could feel the passion raising in his deep baritone voice, today was most special.
“The crowd today, now this is what you call big! I ain’t never seen this many people in my city. I got here at 3AM just to make sure I got my same spot by the pool. And like Million Man March, I had to turn and look two miles in the opposite direction and watch on the big TV monitors…Sure I like Obama, he’s a good man. And sure it makes me proud that he’s Black, but I’d like the man if he were green! The man is genuine, the real deal. Look at all these people from everywhere. Now what does that tell you?!
DC Irving stopped and took a moment, his gloved hand squeezing tightly the small flag staff and when he continued, his comments became personal,
“See this [flag]. I feel a since of pride in my country I never had before. For the first time in my life, I feel comfortable in my own home.”
“…Some people released the pain they carried for a life time.”
The Good Host
The city of Washington D.C. played host to guests from around the world and these visitors will leave, taking home with them an unforgettable experience. They will take home an image of Americans, especially African-Americans that are completely opposite of the two-dimensional stereotype molded by news organizations and Hollywood’s big screen. Contrary to finding the glorified ugliness of hype, they will speak of how they discovered the true soul of a people. Foreign travelers returning to their towns and villages will share the experience of meeting and mingling with Americans; a proud people, a sharing people, a compassionate people.
To throw a great party, you need a great host and the citizens of D.C. were all that and some. To accommodate the hundreds of thousands of visitors, Washingtonians opened their homes, shared dinner tables and gave of time graciously while extending hospitality to relatives, friends and strangers alike. And if it were not for this display of kindness, today could not have happened. There are many cities across the country that can and have host great events, but when it came time to step-up, this city stepped-up big time. There will arise opportunities in the future for cities to host extraordinary affairs, but what’s undisputed is that the DC’ans have raised the bar—and on that, they can’t be faded.
The Generations
If we are judged by the company we keep and attract, then President Barack Obama must be judged by the millions of well-wishers he’s attracted on this day. He chooses to lead with respect not fear and the sincerity and honestness radiating from his cool demeanor has attracted people mirroring similar qualities. And the assemblage before him reflects a beautiful mosaic of a diverse country—people from all walks of life and from every geographical niche. The term, “We the People”, has never been more aptly suited. The hopes and dreams expressed in the faces of the people gathered easily equate into a vision of a positive future and if their high expectations for the new president seem unobtainable —or just a dream—remember, they stand where a dreamer once stood.
Since age demographics cut across ethnic and gender lines, young people, many standing on the Mall with their young families, make-up the largest contingent group. In a family setting, generation grouping are marked on average about every twenty years, from parent, on to grandparent, on to great-grand parent and so on. When the torch is passed, it contains the emotions; happiness and joy, sadness and pain of the preceding generation. If pain is learned and not experienced, the hurt subsides—there can be movement and degrees of change are possible.
In nations however, generations are a continuum, born every second, there’s no such thing as generation grouping. The notion we have national generation groups was created when a blurry line was drawn at the end of WWII designating the next twenty years as the baby boom generation. That gives us a starting point. Boomers are followed by generation X, followed by the Y or Z or something else. But whatever name is bestowed in pop culture lexicon, the reality remains the same, the iGeneration and the Hip-Hop Generation elected GenerationX President of the United States. The ground has shifted. The torch as been passed.
And it’s all good.
Tags: 2008 election, Add new tag, African American History, Ajamu Jumal, Barack Obama, Black, History, Jumal, Literature, Mariam Anderson, Million Man March, Okeyo Jumal, spiritual Shackles, Stevie Wonder