History

Today I watched President Barack Obama sworn in for his second term in office. Our first African American President now joins the ranks of those Presidents who actually were voting in for a second term. As I watched this event I did  not lose sight of the fact that it was also being conducted on the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday this year. So history is joined between the man who led the civil rights movement and gave his "I Have A Dream" speech on the same platform as our first President of color.

While watching the ceremony and listening to the President's speech I began to think about all the history I have been privy to during my lifetime. Some things I thought I would never see or believed could happen.  Though I was born after the end of WWII I can remember when Ike, President Eisenhower, was elected president and the tales of his military accomplishments. I remember the manufacturing that came with and after the war. There was a big munitions plant in St. Louis, along with car plants, pharmaceutical plants, coal companies, and many more jobs available. My father died when I was eight, leaving my mother with three sons to raise. It was a poor working neighborhood, the few white families moved away and I worked for the Jewish grocery owner on the corner as a kid. 

Then John F. Kennedy years, with the cold war,the peace corps, the race for space. How can I forget when America placed the first man on the moon and how proud we were to beat the Russians. I remember the beginning and the end of the war in Viet Nam. Now years later, under different circumstances and leaders I have witnessed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I witnessed the assassination of several leaders who would have changed the course of history had they lived. When President Kennedy was assassinated did the country feel the same pain as those who experienced the assassination of President Lincoln? How painful it was to then see his brother Robert Kennedy killed while trying to continue a legacy. And during that same period the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, a man of peace and a leader of the civil rights movement.

I lived through the civil rights era of the 1960's. Witnessed the brutality, the struggle for equal rights for all, and experienced the racism that existed. While not in the south, but in Missouri, racial prejudice existed strong everywhere. Busing, housing, schools, and the workplace. I remember and had a change to see great change in history come about through marches, sit ins, riots, boycotts, and then legislature.School desegregation, voting rights acts, interracial marriages, and now something I never thought I would see in my lifetime, a black President.

With so much history behind me, and this is just a small portion, I wonder what is in store for my grand children. What history lies in store for them? Hopefully this inauguration will be the start of their memories and history will be good to them. Perhaps universal health coverage, new energy sources, the advancements of technology will lead the way. I remember the first super computers and how large they  were, and now I can send this message around the world from my phone in the palm of my hand.