Yesterday was an amazing day for us. We started out with a church service at S.hiloh Baptist Church. Shiloh was founded amidst the turmoil of the Civil War in 1863 by 21 former slaves. From that beginning, Shiloh has become one of the most regarded religious institutions in Washington. Besides the INCREDIBLE music supported by the joint choirs (107 members) for this special inauguration service , we had the honor of listening to J.on Lewis, Congressmen from Georgia preach. The Honorable J.on Lewis is often called "one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced" and to meet him and listen to him tell the stories of he and MLK walking and marching and speaking together brought tears to our eyes and filled our spirits with the enormity of what electing Barrack means to all those who have 'got in the way' for justice and equality for all people. He told us about when he had been beaten by police, left for dead, jailed for walking, talking, refusing to go away.
In 1961, J.on Lewis joined the Freedom Riders and is the last remaining of the group that worked closely with MLK and stood with him during his 'I have a Dream' speech. Hearing him preach, singing with the Shiloh congregation and witnessing the pride and excitement in his and others eyes and voice that morning is something I will never, ever forget. After the church service, which lasted two and a half hours and I never looked at my watch, we headed over to the Lincoln Memorial for the concert. Wow!!! the energy, the people the excitement... I cannot even put it in words. The cabbies who have been here for a few inaugurations keep telling us they have never seen anything like this.. "the people are so happy" and they really are. Everyone is 'hi', 'how are you', 'where are you from', 'oh, I'm sorry'(when they bump into you). It really gves me more hope to be with all these people... that we will get there... to a place where we take care of the least among us and are all equal.
Ok, finishing the day. Of course we could not even get close to the Lincoln Memorial but there are huge screens placed all down the Mall, so you can see it. If you watched the concert last night, the camera's panned from Lincoln to the Wash. Monument, but not beyond that. Well, all those people that you saw in that area was duplicated on the back side of the monument all the way to the Capitol. It was so cool, remember these are all happy people, so even though it is a large crowd, it's all good. After the concert we tooled around the
memorials- WWII and Vietnam and then walked over to the White House.
Exhausted from the day, we skipped the new swanky nightclub for the L Word premiere and opted to watch it back where we are staying... in our PJ's. It was a most amazing day!!
