Inspired

Today January 20, 2009, the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama has been sworn into Office. At the library, we have broadcast the event on a 50" television. History is taking place right before our eyes and we are part of that history.

In early April, 1968 my mother boarded a train in Schenectady, New York with my sister who was 8 and me. I was 5. We were coming home from visiting friends. Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed and riots had broken out in Chicago. The porter on the train, a black man, wouldn't let my mother off in Chicago unless there was someone there to pick us up. It was just too dangerous. My father was driving to Union Station from Evanston to pick us up. The police at the blockades told him he couldn't go into the city because it was too dangerous. He knew that it was too dangerous not to go so he drove to Union Station and we brought us home safety. I don't remember that day. I was five and the porter, my mother, and my father did everything in their power to to make that day like a regular day.

When I started grade school, desegregation was a popular term. What that meant to me was that some kids rode a bus to school and some kids walked. I was jealous. I wanted to ride the big yellow bus to and from school. There was a boy in my class. His name was Dock Cannon. He was so cute, brown skin, short black hair and really nice. I used to stand on the sidewalk and watch Dock's bus pull away to take him home. I stood there and waved until the bus turned the corner out of sight and then I would walk to my house 6 blocks away.

I worked at the Roosevelt Branch of the Chicago Public Library in the mid-1990's. We were not allowed to open the library unless there were two employees and a security guard on duty. We had no evening hours because the neighborhood was too dangerous. My boss was a Taiwanese woman and and the other two women and the security guard were African-American. The ladies I worked with told me that I was safer going to my car and driving in that neighborhood than they were because black-on-black crimes were more likely than black-on-white crimes. Most of the kids that came into the library were African-American and they lived in the nearby Chicago Housing Project apartment. Many of these small children had no experience with a white person, let alone a pale red-headed white girl. They were fascinated. They wanted to play with my hair and they wanted to trust me, but first they needed to get to know me. One of the regulars that came to read the paper everyday stopped coming in during the stifling hot summer months. When he reappeared, he had a cast on his leg. He told me that he was leaving his apartment for work one day and was hit by stray gunfire. That happened more in the sweltering heat.

On May 7, 2005 U.S. Senator Barack Obama hosted a town hall meeting at the Sycamore Public Library. Over 400 people attended the event. Some came with their children so they could have the experience of seeing a political figure speak and answer questions, some attended because they just happened to be at the library during the event, and many came to hear what the first year Senator was going to do to help the State of Illinois and the Country. I had the opportunity to greet the Senator as he came through the door and then I spent most of the time during his question and answer session fitting people into the room, turning up the air conditioning, and giving library employees the chance to go and see the Senator for themselves. After the crowds had dispersed and it was well past time for the Senator to move on to his next speaking engagement, he came out of the meeting room and thanked me for opening the library, he asked if he had signed my copy of his book that I held in my hand. I said no and asked if we could have a picture of us together. He signed the book and wrote "I love libraries!" Then he said, I mean that, I do love libraries. Even though he was running late and needed to go, he took a couple of extra minutes to stop and talk to me.

My life has been inspired by these events. I am inspired now as we have looked beyond color, beyond political party, and into the person when electing our President. I am proud to be an American.