Even With a Ticket, Local Woman Misses the Inauguration
Local Leader
WSEE-35
Lindsay Perna
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 21, 2009
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama reached a goal that civil rights leaders gave their lives for. All Jennifer Dobbs Woods wanted was to be present at the ceremony honoring the actualization of not only her dreams, but the dreams of her ancestors before her.
“The enormity of this moment in time has empowered me, inspired me and I couldn’t live with myself if I couldn’t be a part of it,” the fundraising coordinator for United Way in Erie said two days before she planned on leaving for D.C. to attend the inauguration of Obama.
Prepared with numerous layers of clothing, snacks and packaged body warmers, Woods headed toward the National Mall at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning.
But Woods, who had a ticket for a standing area, did not make it through the security gate. Police officials told her to leave only 15 minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to start.
With all National Mall entrances to non-ticketed areas closed at that point, Woods was forced to hear Obama’s inaugural speech in the crowded California Pizza Kitchen miles away from the site.
Aware that with the crowds she could only attend either the parade or the speech, her “spirits were crushed” when she walked away from the Mall. “We got chipped out of both.”
She said she was born into an abusive family, “a life that was almost unimaginable,” and was then adopted into an upper middle class family. She had always felt lucky for her opportunities, she said.
“Like Barack I’m really someone who has done it on her own from an unbelievable beginning,” she said.
Even her father exemplifies such accomplishments as the first African American male teacher in Erie.
Despite the “trip from hell,” Woods said she appreciated her president’s speech.
“I needed for me to physically be there…what he said matters to me, but to be there physically to hear the reverberation of his voice…” Woods said of the disappointment.
“I don’t blame Obama,” she said.
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