"My Parents Who Are in Heaven Waited Their Whole Lives for This"

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http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/being_there/2009/01/my-parents-who-are-in-heaven-w.html

Eyewitness To History

"My Parents Who Are in Heaven Waited Their Whole Lives for This"

By CQ Staff | January 20, 2009 9:04 AM


As the Super Shuttle van rumbled along the highway from Dulles International Airport to Washington Monday evening, passenger Dorothy Shepherd wished her mother and father could be with her to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama.

"I'm here visiting for my parents who are in heaven and waited their whole lives for this," said Shepherd, a 65-year-old African-American from Chino Hills, Calif.

A real estate broker and retired educator with a doctorate in psychology, Shepherd was born in the rural town of Como, Miss., and grew up about 45 miles away in Memphis, Tenn. Fed up with the indignities of segregation, she left Memphis for a new life in southern California in 1961, just as Dr. Martin Luther King was gaining prominence as a leader of the civil rights movement. While Shepherd never saw King in person, her mother and sisters marched with him in Memphis.

Shepherd traveled to Washington with her husband of 28 years, Al Shepherd, a 76-year-old retired Air Force veteran who served in Europe and southeast Asia and was making his first visit to the nation's capital. The couple woke up at 4 a.m. Monday to catch their flight out of Los Angeles, and by 6 p.m. they were within an hour of their downtown Washington hotel. They chatted about their plans for Tuesday, which included meeting up with Shepherd's sister, who would be arriving by bus from Memphis, attending a reception hosted by their congressman, Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., and going to the National Mall to watch the inaugural ceremony.

Al Shepherd, who was born in Illinois, marveled at how quickly Obama rose from the Illinois Legislature to the presidency. "Just a short while ago he was relatively unknown," he said. "It will be interesting to see what the history books say about him."

Dressed in a heavy winter coat with a button featuring King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, Shepherd was still wearing her earmuffs 30 minutes into the shuttle ride. She wondered about the teeming crowds and cold weather that awaited them on the National Mall this morning.

"The atmosphere is going to be so warm and electrifying I won't mind," she said.