Americans rush plans for Obama inauguration

WASHINGTON - Pattie Brew, daughter of a North Carolina
sharecropper, had let almost a century go by without casting a vote
for president or joining the inaugural crowds only three miles from
her home in the nation's capital.
"I never had no interest in it because my vote don't matter
anyway, so I never even took the time to fool with it," said the
97-year-old woman known as Mother Brew. "I knew white people had
the right of way here, you know."
But on Nov. 4, she slipped on white gloves and pearls and found
her way to a polling booth. And on Jan. 20, she wants to see the
country's first inauguration of a black president - not from a
couch at home but from somewhere closer by.
"So much history in this, honey," Brew said. "You gonna get
me a ticket?"
From the District of Columbia's historically black neighborhoods
to Honolulu, Americans who had let many presidents pass them by are
clamoring for a chance to be a part of Barack Obama's inauguration.
There are lengthy waiting lists for tickets to the inauguration and
balls. Hotels have filled up as far away as West Virginia.
Organizers can only guess at the size of the crowds, but the
estimates range from 1 million to an unprecedented 5 million, which
are certain to include many African-Americans who feel connected to
the White House for the first time.
The crowd will include people like Mark Anthony Jenkins of the
Bronx, N.Y., who runs the online Black Singles magazine. Jenkins
has rented 10 buses and has already sold out four for an $80
journey that leaves at 4 a.m. and includes Obama T-shirts and
snacks. Jenkins hired 10 cameramen to document the experience.
"People see this as a historical event," Jenkins said. "Many
of them aren't old enough to remember Martin Luther King Jr., you
know, they never saw him."
In the weeks since Obama's victory, Washington's NAACP bureau
has been fielding questions about lodging from members as far away
as California. Area colleges and universities, including the
historically black Howard University, are receiving calls from
out-of-town students wanting to crash in dorm rooms.
Some are thankful just for a floor.
"The kids will see it and remember it," said James Robinson of
Greenburgh, N.Y., who has a relative in suburban Maryland who
offered her floor to his family. "If we're there, I think it will
sink in more that, 'I can be anything I want to be."'
About 400 NAACP members from Florida are planning to drive at
least 12 hours by car or bus, said Beverlye Colson Neal, executive
director of the state chapter. Neal hopes to stand along the
inaugural parade route with her four grandchildren, ages 1 to 10.
"We are going to take plenty of pictures, so they will know, 'I
was there,"' she said.
Some didn't wait for Obama's victory to make arrangements. The
Rev. Tommie Jackson, pastor of the majority black Faith Tabernacle
Missionary Baptist Church in Stamford, Conn., took a chance and
reserved several buses after Obama won the Iowa caucuses in
January.
"I said, 'We're going all the way,"' Jackson said. "Our
congregation is elated, just overwhelmed that they're sharing in a
history-making event. It's been a long time coming."
Tondaylea Linsey of Stockbridge, Ga., made up her mind to go
moments after Obama's victory was announced, and booked her ticket
even before she was sure she could get the time off work.
"Even though it's going to be freezing up there and there's
going to be a million people ... this is like, once in a
lifetime," said Linsey, 26.
For many older than Linsey, the journey has deep connections to
their struggle for civil rights. Members of the historic First
Baptist Church in Norfolk, Va., will crowd onto buses 50 years to
the month after six of the city's public schools were ordered to
integrate and shut down instead. Seventeen children who were
educated in the basement of the downtown church, known as the
Norfolk 17, were the first to break the color barrier.
Some of the Norfolk 17 will be on the trip, church trustee
Michael Lawton said.
Families of all colors are booking $95 reservations from the
Pittsburgh-area tour bus company DeBolt's LeGrand American Inc. Its
owner, 60-year-old George DeBolt, remembers his parents running the
company when President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated in January
1961.
"I think this is the biggest inaugural event since the Kennedy
inauguration," he said. "Personally, I think this will be
bigger."
For those traveling from faraway states like Hawaii, where Obama
spent a fair amount of his youth, things are much more pricey. One
six-night inauguration travel package goes for $3,299 per person.
And alas, the state's inaugural ball has sold out.
In the past, many longtime D.C. residents have viewed
inaugurations as a good time to get away. But this time may be
different. Already, people in majority-black Washington are talking
about how they can join the throngs celebrating Obama's
swearing-in.
The Rev. Joseph K. Williams, who said his grandfather held him
during the 1963 March on Washington and who remembers the 1968
riots, says he's working all his connections to get his family
tickets to Obama's swearing-in. Regardless, Williams, 46, said
he'll don his gloves and hat and take a few hours off of work on
Jan. 20.
"Whether it's stupid euphoria or not, I feel a sense of being
connected to this president," he said.
Williams, executive director of Emmaus Services for the Aging,
is also trying to score tickets for a group of senior citizens.
"They deserve this time more than my generation does," he
said. "I think they will hear the song, 'We Shall Overcome,' and
believe that we have."
Williams says he knows Pattie Brew and hopes to help her attend
the inauguration.
At her home, where she sits with a walker in front of her, Brew
called Obama "another Martin Luther King." She said God had a
hand in his election. And yes, God answered her own prayers.
"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!" Brew began to sing in praise
of those prayers.
"I'm ready," Brew said of Inauguration Day. "What about you?
You lookin' out trying to get a ticket for me?"
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Associated Press writers Nafeesa Syeed in Washington, Errin
Haines in Atlanta, Jim Fitzgerald in White Plains, N.Y., Joe Mandak
in Pittsburgh, Steve Szkotak in Richmond, Va., and Ron Word in
Jacksonville, Fla., contributed to this report.