Obama calls Americans to service, optimism
President-elect marks inauguration eve by recalling Martin Luther King Jr.
Charles Dharapak / AP
President-elect Barack Obama paints a wall during a visit Monday to Sasha Bruce House, a shelter for teens in Washington.
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How high are stakes for Obama?
Jan. 19: Just how high are the stakes for the new president from a political perspective? “Meet the Press” moderator David Gregory reports. Today show |
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Slideshow
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Martin Luther King Jr.
See the civil rights leader in speeches and marches from Alabama to Washington. more photos |
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Video: White House
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 Obama the uniter?
Jan. 19: As President-elect Barack Obama honors his former rival John McCain at a dinner Monday, a Hardball panel debates whether he can be the uniter his predecessor once promised to be. |
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INTERACTIVE
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Inauguration cartoons
Msnbc.com’s political cartoonists take a look at the inauguration of America’s 44th president, Barack Obama. NBC News |
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WASHINGTON – On the eve of his inauguration, Barack Obama on Monday called Americans to service and optimism, darting through the capital for a blizzard of events marking the 80th birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
On the National Mall, there was already a party atmosphere in anticipation of the inauguration of America’s first black president Tuesday.
Several of the large-screen televisions were alight with replays of a concert at the Lincoln Memorial a day earlier. At a corner, the Boys Choir of Kenya performed an impromptu selection for the crowd. On the specially built inaugural stands outside the Capitol, musicians Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman rehearsed for their role in Tuesday’s ceremonies.
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Vying for a spot close to stage
Hundreds of people pressed up against the blocked-off seating area in hopes of getting as close to the inaugural stage as possible.
“Everybody’s excited,” said Donald Butler, 20, a student at the University of Washington. “There are smiling faces everywhere, and it’s a nice, diverse crowd. It’s history. I didn’t think I would see a black president in my generation. I just had to be here.” Butler is black.
If Obama felt nervous about becoming president in a few hours, he didn’t show it Monday, as he cracked jokes and breezed through a series of volunteerism events and bipartisan dinners.
“I don’t sweat,” said the 47-year-old man about to inherit responsibility for two wars, an economy in crisis and the helm of the world’s lone superpower. “You ever see me sweat?”
Obama talked with wounded troops at a military hospital Monday and then visited an emergency shelter for homeless teens, grabbing a roller to help give the walls a fresh coat of paint. He appealed to the nation to remember King through service to others.
The incoming leader also made a call for unity: “Tomorrow, we will come together as one people on the same Mall where Dr. King’s dream echoes still.” King made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the National Mall in 1963, five years before his assassination.
Civil rights pioneers among attendees
Among those with special invitations to the inauguration were heroes of the civil rights struggle. They included the Tuskegee Airmen — the country’s first black military pilots and ground crew — and the Little Rock Nine, high school students who braved enraged white mobs to become the first black students at an Arkansas high school after the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional.
“This is going to change everything,” said Terrence Roberts, one of the nine black students who integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. “To look at a man of color and call him president, it’s something that I never thought I would see in my lifetime.”
The president-elect and an army of aides and volunteers who have planned the lead-up to the inauguration have masterfully built excitement and expectation about the historic event. Behind the scenes, people made final preparations for the many parties, balls and other celebrations after Obama’s oath-taking and the inaugural parade.
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The preinaugural festivities have enlivened otherwise staid Washington and seized the imagination of a nation in the grips of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s Great Depression, even as it fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama honoring Sen. John McCain
After dark on Monday, Obama was attending dinners honoring what his transition team termed “three Americans whose lifetime of public service has been enhanced by a dedication to bipartisan achievement.” Among them was Sen. John McCain, Obama’s vanquished Republican opponent for the presidency.
Meanwhile, President George W. Bush, with just a day left in his term, made phone calls from the White House to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and a dozen other world leaders to thank them for their work with him over the last eight years.
Outside the White House, about 500 anti-war protesters threw about 40 pairs of shoes at the gates of the presidential mansion on Bush’s last day. Supporters said they were acting in solidarity with Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in December.
NBC News reported that the Secret Service arrested one man on a disorderly conduct charge for tossing a shoe over the South fence of the White House.
There was one unscripted moment Monday, when Jill Biden, wife of Vice President-elect Joe Biden, blurted out while taping the Oprah Winfrey TV show that her husband had been offered a choice of vice president or secretary of state by Obama. Hillary Rodham Clinton was chosen for secretary of state.
“Shhh!” said the vice president-elect, whose attempt to silence his wife sent the audience into laughter. A few hours later, his office issued a statement that said: “To be clear, President-elect Obama offered Vice President-elect Biden one job only — to be his running mate. And the vice president-elect was thrilled to accept the offer.”
Tourists revel in the moment
At the Capitol earlier on Monday, groups of tourists wandered around the barricades to take pictures of the viewing stands and the monuments and buildings. A few even stood and watched NFL highlights that were being shown on the big-screen TV at the Capitol.
Three teachers from Baltimore said they decided to come out to the Capitol to scope out their routes in and out for the inauguration ceremony.
“Seems like they’ve planned it out pretty well,” said Gary Campbell, 29, of Baltimore as his group looked at the viewing stand from across the Capitol reflecting pool. Their school, Baltimore Freedom Academy, and the Homeland Security Academy planned to send four busloads of children to the National Mall to watch the inauguration ceremony.
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Witnessing history
Being from Baltimore the three were decked out in cold-weather gear and said they planned on wearing thermal coats, hats and scarves for the long wait on the Mall Tuesday.
“We knew to come prepared,” said Maddy Ahearn, 24.
Runner Kim Person stopped in front of the Capitol to snap a few quick pictures of the reviewing stand during a break in her marathon training. Person doesn’t have a ticket to the festivities, so she used the early morning lull to get close to the building.
“That’s why I’m looking at it today, because I won’t be able to see it tomorrow,” said Person, 43, who plans to be near the Washington Monument on Tuesday.
“So many people would die just to get to see this. … It happens once, and once only,” said Isaiah Bryant, 17, of Orlando, Fla.
Isaiah was one of 40 students from Jones High School who won an essay contest to get the opportunity to see history firsthand. Florida state Rep. Geraldine Thompson and Bob Mandell, a fundraiser for Obama, raised $10,000 for the trip after a teacher at the school suggested that the inauguration would be a special teaching moment.
Inspired by Obama
Most of the winners, none of whom is old enough to vote, said Obama’s candidacy was the first time they had been inspired by a candidate.
“I wrote about when I was growing up in Haiti. It was like you didn’t have nothing,” said Stevenson Cherry, one of the winners.
“I couldn’t do nothing, but seeing Obama opening all those doors, he instilled in me that I can do anything that I want no matter what people say. I can believe in myself and accomplish what I want to do,” Stevenson said.
That Obama’s inauguration was taking place a day after King’s birthday celebration held special meaning for many.
“I think [King] would be overjoyed,” said Richard Schur, a professor at Drury University in Springfield, Mo. “And to reach a point where there’s an African-American president says that we are getting beyond all of these wounds that have been long-standing in American history.”
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The Rev. Frank Moses, pastor of Olive Branch African Methodist Episcopal Church in Chareston, S.C., said: “Dr. King was such an avid civil rights advocate for all people, and here we are at this point in time inaugurating a black American to the highest office in the land and the leader of the free world.
“These are very, very exciting times,” said Moses, who chartered a bus to take 42 members of his church to Washington, where they were expected to arrive Monday. “It should be not only for people of color, but people everywhere.”
Msnbc.com’s Alex Johnson, NBC stations KYTV of Springfield, Mo.; WCBD of Charleston, S.C.; WESH of Orlando, Fla.; and WXII of Winston-Salem, N.C., contributed to this report.
