Two days full of dreams

GLENDALE — Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 speech — on Tuesday, they culminate with the swearing in of Barack Obama as the nation’s first black president.

The historic moment Tuesday on the steps of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., brings an added weight to King’s famous “I have a dream” speech and the national holiday that honors his life of civil rights activism.

As in years past, government offices are closed, school campuses are empty, but this year, where previously people may have considered the day off a leisurely break, the nation prepares to witness history and consider its implications.

“Honestly, I’ve never really thought about Martin Luther King [Jr.] Day, but this year, yeah, it’s totally different,” Jessica Carter, who is black, said Saturday while shopping at the Americana at Brand. “We got our man Obama in the White House now, so ‘the dream’ is real.”

Primed with constant network television coverage on Obama’s train stops en route to Washington, D.C., and countdown news programming on the inauguration, it seemed almost surreal for some residents that they should be preparing for a black president.

“I remember the headlines when Dr. King was assassinated,” said 83-year-old Glendale resident Ruth Johnson, who was active in grass-roots civil rights advocacy in the 1960s and ’70s. “Now, to see Barack Obama up there, it’s almost unbelievable.”

For two of Glendale’s most prominent black executives — Glendale Community College President/Supt. Audrey Levy, and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins — the impact of Obama’s election on King’s memory also was not lost.

“To think that some 30-odd years ago, Martin Luther King [Jr.] had that speech, ‘I have a dream,’” Scoggins said, “It’s incredible.”

He and his wife flew to Washington, D.C., Friday night to attend the inauguration.

“To be able to witness the only ‘first time’ an African American will be sworn in as president — it’s just so meaningful to me,” he said Saturday.

Scoggins made history last year when he became Glendale’s first black fire chief.