As history swirls around her at the second inauguration of President Barack Obama on Monday, Millersville University student Marteena Oliphant will be on the National Mall, taking it all in.

Oliphant, president of Millersville's Black Student Union, will travel by bus with other Millersville students and faculty members to see Obama take the public oath of office on the very day the nation honors the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Obama will use a Bible that belonged to King, along with another that belonged to President Abraham Lincoln. The Bibles will be held by Michelle Obama, a descendant of a slave and now the first lady of a nation marking the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

"It's going to be a moment I remember for the rest of my life," said Oliphant, a senior from Philadelphia who is majoring in public relations.

Oliphant, and other local African-American leaders, say they will draw particular satisfaction in seeing President Obama sworn in for a second term, and they say it's especially fitting that he should do so on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Obama's re-election, they say, has meaning that goes far beyond the political realm.

It "says so much about our progress as a nation," Oliphant said. "I think about it every day when I lose faith or feel like giving up: Someone who looks like me is in the highest position in the land."

Camille Hopkins, principal at George Ross Elementary in the School District of Lancaster, said she wondered what Dr. King might say about Monday's confluence of events, "besides smiling down from heaven. ... It's historical and magical at the same time."

"These two great men get to cross paths and connect on the same day … it's the coolest thing ever," said Mark Simms, principal at Hand Middle School.

In his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial 50 years ago, King famously looked forward to the day when his children would not be judged "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

The re-election of this country's first African-American president — and the fact that he's the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to win at least 51 percent of the popular vote twice — suggests that Obama was "judged by his character, and not by the color of his skin," said Rita Smith-Wade-El, a psychology professor at Millersville University.

She said that the Constitution "makes promises to the people who choose to be members of this country."

That this country ever needed an Emancipation Proclamation "reminds us that we haven't always kept our promises," she said, while the inaugurations of this country's first black president are promises kept.

It's poignant, she said, that Monday's public ceremony should share the day with King, who in his "I Have a Dream" speech, spoke of the promises the founders made to the citizens of this country.

"When you think about Dr. Martin Luther King and what he really tried to project, it seems like it's all coming full circle," Lancaster City Council President Louise Williams said.

Williams said she is going to be "very jubilant" Monday, and today, too, as Obama takes the oath of office in a quiet White House ceremony, to fulfill the constitutional requirement that the president be sworn in Jan. 20.

Leroy Hopkins, a professor at Millersville, points out that this year marks the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Colored Troops' entrance into the Civil War. That was a pivotal development, he said. "The North was on its way to losing until black recruits were allowed to fight in the land war."

Said Williams: "It's just phenomenal, the history of it all."

'Symbol of hope'
Darrius Moore, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was at Obama's first inauguration. "It was hectic but satisfying," he said. "It was something I felt like I needed to do."

Now a junior majoring in sociology at Franklin & Marshall College, he'll be watching Monday's inaugural festivities on television.

For Moore, vice president of F&M's Black Student Union, President Obama is "a constant symbol of hope, a constant symbol of my potential for the future, things that I am capable of achieving."

When he was a kid, his family members would encourage him by telling him that someday he might be this country's first black president.

But Obama got there first.

When Moore becomes a father, his children "won't have to wonder if there ever will be a black president," he said. "My kids will see a black president's face in their textbooks. … They're going to have a richer and more enlightened upbringing because of that."

Mark Simms said that when King was slain, "I was a toddler. What I knew about him was through videotapes and history lessons."

The students at Hand, however, get to see a black president in action, every day and this makes their dreams more conceivable. "I read history books," Simms said. "They're living history."

Camille Hopkins said that to see "how our country is evolving, to see how different cultural groups are being accepted, "to see Americans "accepting each other for our differences," is powerful for young people. "My students realize that the world is theirs to take."

Isaiah Cromwell, a sophomore at F&M and treasurer of the Black Student Union there, said the president might not have attained King's iconic status yet, but "for the next generation, he will be similar to Dr. King."

In 2008, when Obama was first elected president, "I was crying, my whole family was crying," said Cromwell, who hails from Newark, N.J. "I went to school in my Barack Obama 'Yes We Can' T-shirt."

His older relatives, including his grandmother, "didn't believe that day would ever come," he said.

In the four years they've been in the White House so far, the Obama family has transformed the views of some white Americans about African-Americans, in Cromwell's view. "They're like the modern-day 'Cosby Show,'" he laughed.

And the president himself is an inspiring figure for black youngsters, Cromwell said. A little kid, seeing Obama take the oath of office, might say, "I want to be the president. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a leader," Cromwell noted.

Come Monday, "I'll be keeping my head up high," Cromwell said. "I think I'm going to cry again."

On the way to realizing King's dream
Black supporters of the president say that he has been tested in ways other presidents have not.

"No matter what he does, it's somehow not up to par," Rita Smith-Wade-El observed. "If you're not a middle-to-upper-class European-American, heterosexual male, you have to work twice as hard, and you're always under a microscope."

She and others said they've been dismayed by what they perceive to be a lack of respect shown this president. "They don't call him president," Smith-Wade-El said. "They call him 'Barack' or 'Mr. Obama.'"

The questions raised over his birth certificate and his religion, the way he's been characterized by political opponents, even the recent petitions for secession tendered by some Southerners — all these things have registered as racial in nature, Smith-Wade-El and others said.

"Some of it has been very blatant, and some of it subtle," Louise Williams said, asserting that the attitude toward Obama from some seems to be, "you're in this position, but you don't really count, you really aren't the president, you don't deserve to be president."

Theresa Mosby, a black West Hempfield Township resident who has excoriated Obama in letters to this newspaper, maintained that the president has been harshly criticized because his policies are "driving the country in the wrong direction. His race has absolutely nothing to do with it. ... The man was not held down because of the color of his skin."

Camille Hopkins said it's been instructive for young people to see "the struggles that are still occurring," and to see how the president has persevered in going "against the odds, to make a difference, no matter what is being said about you."

Said Williams, "I'm sure he's looking at it as 'I can't allow it to be about me.'"

Still, she worries about the president's safety. "He is constantly in my prayers."

She said that her concern that the president might not be re-elected weighed on her so heavily that she couldn't make herself watch the election returns, until a cousin called late that night, to tell her Obama was winning.

The president's re-election was a validation that 2008 wasn't just a fluke, Williams and others said.

His re-election said "an African-American can be a president, a good president," Smith-Wade-El observed.

As Millersville student Marteena Oliphant put it, "Lightning doesn't strike twice for African-Americans." Obama had to break through barriers; his victories were hard-fought, she said.

The numbers "speak for themselves," Mark Simms said. "This is what America thinks. … This is whom we've chosen to lead us."

Said Simms: "Monday will be a huge day for all of America, especially for young people."

In terms of racial equality, "there's still a lot to be done," but "we have come a long way," Louise Williams said. "I think Martin Luther King's dream has come true."

scassidy@lnpnews.com