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A ticket to history ()

As a teenager, Katie K Davenport washed dishes in the basement of a whites-only restaurant in downtown Baltimore, where as an African American she did not venture to the world upstairs.

The work was hard, and it wrecked her hands, and in those times, she said, “You knew, as a black person, where you went and where you didn’t go.”

On January 20, Davenport, now 57, plans to go to the foot of the US Capitol to be admitted to exclusive and majestic confines for the swearing-in of the country’s first African American president. She is one of the members of the general public being allocated a ticket to the historic ceremony, now a little over a week away.

For the former dishwasher, and millions of others, it will be the moment of a lifetime, an event few thought could ever happen: a black man, against the white stone edifice that slaves helped build, pledging to lead the nation, with the help of God.

Davenport said she will bring her ticket, a camera and her prayers. On Monday, with the inauguration fast approaching, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies will start handing over the color-coded free tickets to members of Congress and the Presidential Inaugural Committee for distribution this week.

The handover climaxes months of ticket madness that started even before the jubilation surrounding Barack Obama’s election. Tens of thousands of people, who were told that Congress would allocate tickets, deluged legislators with requests.

Many, like Davenport, wound up eligible for lotteries or got on waiting lists.

The Internet lit up with ticket offers, although no tickets were available. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, sought to block online sales of the tickets, and eBay, the online auction site, said it would comply.

In the end, a little less than half of the 240,000 tickets were allotted to the Presidential Inaugural Committee, for staff and campaign workers, and to many other VIPs and dignitaries, officials said.

The remainder, about 125,000, went to Congress: 198 to each member of the House and 393 to each member of the Senate. Many of those tickets had to go to state dignitaries, local officials or community individuals deserving of an honour, legislators’ offices said.

Senator Mark R Warner, D-Va., for one, had just 75 tickets left for the general public, a spokesman said, although that number might grow if others decline their tickets.

The ticket distribution starts the final countdown to the inauguration and comes as officials have opened up unprecedented areas of the Mall and large sections of the inaugural parade route to those without tickets.

The four-day extravaganza begins Saturday, when President-elect Barack Obama makes a day-long “whistle-stop” train journey from Philadelphia to Washington. Obama and his family will attend an event in Philadelphia, ride the rails to Wilmington, Del., where they will be joined by Vice President-elect Joseph Biden and his family, and then continue on to Baltimore and Washington. Details of their public appearances during the trip have not yet been announced.

The Obamas and Bidens will be joined on the trip by a small group of average Americans from across the country, according to the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

On Sunday, Obama and Biden will attend the free festivities at the Lincoln Memorial that will mark the inauguration’s official opening. The event will be televised by HBO and feature “some of the biggest acts in the world of entertainment,” according to the committee.

On Monday, which is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the president-elect will participate in, and invite the country to join, a national day of community service. And that night, the Presidential Inaugural Committee will hold a youth concert at Verizon Center. The concert is free, but tickets are required.

Also that night, Obama will attend three separate dinners, one to honor his former campaign opponent, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one to fete Biden and one to salute former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Not all the details of the events have been worked out, inauguration officials said.

The swearing-in ceremony and inauguration parade take place on Tuesday. For the first time, the Mall will be opened up as a non-ticketed viewing area and the ceremony and parade will be broadcast on giant video screens. Millions are expected there.

Thousands more are expected to line the parade route along Pennsylvania Avenue and 15th Street NW. Five thousand $25 tickets to the parade bleacher seats sold out within minutes Friday, but plenty of free standing room will be available.

The swearing-in tickets, which were printed last summer and fall and have been kept under lock and key, allow recipients to sit or stand in special color-coded viewing areas just west of the Capitol.

Many will not get as close as they had hoped.

A spokesman for Rep. James P Moran, D-Va., said his office got 17,000 ticket requests. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., got 40,000 requests and begged, apparently in vain, for more. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin Jr., D-Md. got 60,000.

“It’s just been unbelievably mind-boggling,” said Susan Sullam, a spokeswoman for Cardin. “It’s wonderful. People are truly excited. But it’s staggering.”

A spokesman for Warner said that some tickets were being set aside for the presidents of Virginia’s historically black colleges and universities, for the state’s 2009 teacher of the year and for others who might not have had the opportunity to attend.

Davenport, a programme analyst from Jessup, Md., said she sent Cardin an early e-mail requesting tickets for herself and her 80-year-old brother, Jesse Williams, of White Marsh, a retired, disabled Army veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars. Cardin’s tickets were allocated by lottery, Sullam said. Davenport said she was informed last week that she was getting the tickets and was told to pick them up this Friday at Cardin’s Washington office. Her brother said he might not be able to go because of an illness in his family.

But both have their $50 train tickets. “It’s going to be such a spirit of union,” Davenport said. “People are coming out there to be united, to be a part of history. It’s going to be a spiritual thing.”

-LAT-WP

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