Where We're Going, Where We've Been When President Barack Obama
took the oath of office on Monday, January 21, he was surrounded
by an extraordinary legacy of 50- year civil rights milestones
that helped make possible his first and second inauguration. It
was fitting that the inaugural invocation was delivered on the
steps of the U.S. Capitol by Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of
civil rights hero Medgar Evers. After years of risking his life
to end discrimination against Black Mississippians, Medgar Evers
was killed by an assassin's bullet in the driveway of his home
50 years ago on June 12, 1963. Medgar Evers, ironically was
killed just hours after President John F. Kennedy delivered a
nationally televised speech in support of civil rights.
President Kennedy, himself was assassinated only five months
later, 50 years ago, on Nov. 22, 1963. President Obama took the
oath of office holding a Bible belonging to another champion of
civil rights and American Democracy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Fifty years ago,