It may have looked like the whole world came out for President Barack Obama’s inauguration yesterday, but in reality over one million people, a record number according to Associated Press estimates, flocked to Washington D.C. for the historic occasion. Others viewed the event at special locations or on their own TV screens.
In Jersey City, Tiffany Perry, a mother of three boys who lives in the Housing Authority’s Curries Woods housing complex, was among 50 public housing residents who were bused or came on their own to the Curries Woods Community Revitalization Center near the Jersey City/Bayonne border. Perry was holding her 1-year-old son Kopono as she viewed Obama taking the oath of office.
“It’s refreshing because it renews hope that I think a lot of people lost and were missing,” Perry said. “It gives hope that anything is possible, and things will change because we need it.”
Jersey City has a special connection to Obama. As a candidate, he visited the city in April of 2007 and January of 2008. Obama also got early support from Mayor Jerramiah Healy, one of the few prominent New Jersey politicians to give him an early endorsement.
Healy and his wife, Maureen, were among a number of Jersey City politicians who made it to the nation’s capital Tuesday to see the new leader addressing them. (See photo, left.)
“And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born, know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more,” Obama intoned from his inaugural address. — Ricardo Kaulessar
A historic day for local residents…
