2 defining moments linked

WASHINGTON, D.C. — To a lucky few people in attendance, Tuesday's swearing-in ceremony of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States was the second time they had stood on the National Mall to witness history in the making.

The event was often compared to the 1963 march on Washington when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his "I Have A Dream" speech.

At least two Utahns were among those who were there 45 years ago on a hot August day to hear the civil-rights leader stoke the fires of hope as he asked the nation to "rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed" that all people are considered equal.

Fast-forward to Jan. 20, 2009, and another leader stood before an even larger audience and implored them to honor Americans of previous generations who died trying to pave the way for today's liberty through "a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves."

Baltimore native Barbara Beard White, who now is the principal of West Bountiful Elementary, said watching Obama give his speech brought back the memories of her experience on that summer day in 1963.

"You wake up from the dream and live and walk the reality of that dream," said Beard White.

Making the trek to Washington, D.C., as a teenager to hear Dr. King's speech was one of the defining moments of her life, she said. Beard White said that Obama's candidacy resonated with her because he represented so many of the attributes that she heard from King and saw in people like herself. She and her four siblings were raised primarily by her mother, and she recalled how she struggled early on in school.

"To see this man whose background was similar to mine, whose dad was not really in his life, and he didn't let obstacles get in his way," she said. "He made it that for all of us, no matter what you look like or your background, if it's in your heart then you can do it."

For the Rev. France Davis, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Salt Lake City, Tuesday's inauguration also resonated with his trip to Washington in 1963. He participated in the march when he was an 18-year-old college student at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

He said he became involved in helping blacks gain voting and other civil rights during the 1960s and didn't consider the event "a big deal" at the time. But he said his perspective was changed when he saw the hundreds of thousands of people who ventured to nation's capital that day and the impact it had on the entire country.