‘Watch parties’ see inauguration around town

Barack Obama Inauguration 2009 Special Report

Slideshow: Inauguration 2009

Micky Ferguson didn’t need a crowd Tuesday afternoon.

“All I need is that television set,” she said.

Only four other people showed up at the Diamond Hill Recreation Center on Tuesday to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, leaving most of the folding chairs Ferguson had set up between two pool tables empty. But she couldn’t have been any more animated if the attendance had been standing room only.

Ferguson didn’t use a chair, either. Instead, she paced back and forth, leaned forward with anticipation and laughed when Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts mangled the presidential oath of office. Then, when Obama’s ascension became official, she scampered around the room hugging everyone.

“I woke up this morning and said, ‘Oh, my God, it’s today!’” said Ferguson.

For anyone who wanted to share the historic moment with others, there were a number of places in Lynchburg that aired the events in Washington, including most of the city recreation centers and several restaurants. At the Jubilee Center on Florida Avenue, Fanny Crider whispered “Thank you, Jesus,” as she watched, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Mary Payne, a longtime Lynchburg civil rights advocate, echoed that sentiment later in the day.

“The last door just opened,” she said. “God is good.”

Members of the youth program at Jubilee have painted a mural celebrating Obama’s victory and plan to hang it on the fence in front of the center later this week.

“We want everybody to drive by and look at it and aspire,” said director Sterling Wilder, “from the kids who come here for programs to the drug dealers on the corner.”

“The vote for President Obama pulled a lot of people together,” said Judith Johnson, chair of the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Council, who was also at Jubilee. “We are the United States of America. It’s not just about Republicans or Democrats.”

Well, maybe it was for one Obama fan at the Depot restaurant.

“I sent my husband to the beach this week,” she said. “He’s a Republican — a good Republican, but I didn’t want him to rain on my parade.”

“I saw so many people vote for the first time this year,” said Victor Williams, who works with Ferguson at the Diamond Hill Center. “My sister, for one — and she’s 24. With me, the big thing wasn’t that he (Obama) is black, although that certainly made me proud. It was just his philosophy, the way he seemed so cool and confident. I went to watch him in Lynchburg and in Roanoke.”

Ferguson first heard about Obama from her aunt, Ora McCoy.

“She saw him on TV at the last convention (in 2004),” Ferguson recalled, “and got all excited.”

Like Williams, she attended Obama’s Lynchburg appearance at the E.C. Glass Auditorium in August (“I was in the fourth row,” she recalled. “It was amazing”), and left even more impressed with “his demeanor, the way he carried himself. I thought to myself, ‘This guy’s for real.’”

So is Ferguson, who manages her center with good humor and tough love.

“I tell the kids, ‘I’m not your mother, I’m not your teacher, I’m your role model,’” she said.

To Wilder, Obama is the perfect role model for some of the disadvantaged young people whom he tries to encourage.

“Here’s someone from a single parent family who achieved all of this,” he said. “I think a lot of kids can relate to that.”

Wilder remembers hearing about a conversation between one of the Jubilee board members, Susan Carrington, and a young girl using the computer lab.

“Susan asked her what she wanted to be,” Wilder said, “and she said she didn’t know. Susan asked, ‘Would you like to be president?’ and she said, ‘No, I can’t be, because I’m brown.

“This (Obama’s presidency) clears my conscience. Now I can tell black kids ‘You can be anything you want to be,’ and really mean it.”