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Civil Rights Footsteps Echo In Inauguration

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The New York Times

Published: January 19, 2009

WASHINGTON - Joseph Burrucker, 82, was an air traffic controller with the Tuskegee Airmen in the 1940s. For the past few weeks, he has been working out at a gym near his home in Shaker Heights, Ohio, trying to get in shape so that at Barack Obama's inauguration, he will be able to walk, albeit with a cane, to his seat.

The Tuskegee Airmen, the elite and segregated corps of black pilots and support crew from World War II, are among the few with inaugural tickets and seats.

Their bravery during the war, on behalf of a country that actively discriminated against them, helped persuade President Harry S. Truman to desegregate the military; today, after being ignored for more than half a century, they are considered civil rights pioneers.

During the presidential campaign, Obama sparingly addressed matters of race. As he prepares for his swearing-in on Tuesday, however, his inaugural is shaping up as a watershed event in the nation's racial history - the culmination of the long struggle for civil rights.

Just over a generation ago, blacks in the South could not vote without restrictions. On Tuesday, more than 1.5 million people - among them about 200 former Tuskegee Airmen - are expected to pack the capital in honor of the nation's first black president.

"It is a huge civil rights moment," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson. "Barack Obama has run the last lap of a 54-year race for civil rights."

The inaugural program and surrounding events will feature some of the nation's most prominent black artists and public figures, including Tiger Woods, Former Gen. Colin Powell, Aretha Franklin, Denzel Washington and Beyonce Knowles.

Adding to the inauguration's significance is that it comes just one day after the celebration of the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when Obama will participate in a day of community service in the District of Columbia, a largely black city often ignored by official Washington. Obama has already signaled his interest in the community.

The Tuskegee Airmen make up just a piece of the inaugural tapestry. Seats were also offered to the Little Rock Nine, who faced violent mobs when they tried to enter an all-white school in 1957 after schools were supposed to be integrated.

David Axelrod, a senior Obama adviser, said of the emerging civil rights aura at the inauguration: "We have not stressed the historic nature of this, but it is hard to miss.

"However people voted, whatever their background, I think there is a pervasive sense of pride among Americans about another barrier broken. It's an affirmation that we live our ideals."

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