For local groups, contrasting journeys

Lillian F. Moore (left) and Sylvia Grimes, part of a group from St. Paul AME Church in Cambridge, shared a laugh on their way to inaugural festivities in Washington aboard a train. (Globe Staff Photo / Jonathan Wiggs)

WASHINGTON - Eighty-five-year-old Lillian F. Moore wiped away tears and lifted her hands to the heavens as the senior pastor at Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, Md., delivered a thundering sermon connecting Barack Obama's election to the struggles of Martin Luther King Jr., Sojourner Truth, and the Biblical Joshua and Moses.

Moore and nine other African-American women in their 70s and 80s from St. Paul AME Church in Cambridge were in the middle of an emotional 12 hours of prayer and song on Sunday. A group that includes retired factory workers, postal workers, and office clerks, they got cheers and applause from the 2,000 congregants when the pastor introduced them from the pulpit.

A few hours later, a band of graying liberal activists from Cambridge rode a train to Washington in a more subdued mood. Playing cribbage and sipping scotch, they listened as Susan Stockard recounted being a 15-year-old seated near John F. Kennedy when he took the oath of office in 1961. The travelers agreed they were once again on their way to another transformational moment in history.

For these two Cambridge groups, one black, one white, the inauguration is a moment of hope and excitement. Both are thrilled to witness the first African-American take the oath of office. Both hope he can rescue the country from a recession and rebuild America's image abroad.

But even as they shared in the joy of the journey, weeping at times and laughing at others, their experiences were vastly different. For the women of St. Paul AME, it was a jubilant celebration of a civil rights milestone, with a four-hour gospel concert that left them singing the song "Total Praise" on the van ride back to their hotel.

For the activists from Cambridge, it was a celebration tinged with concerns and fears - about the invocation today of evangelical pastor Rick Warren, the future of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and the war in Iraq.

"Where do people develop an independent social conscience?" Jim Stockard, a professor at Harvard's design school and an affordable housing consultant, pondered during one discussion on the train ride. His father, a school committee member in Arlington, Va., in the 1950s, helped desegregate that city's schools.

"Isn't it sad that my dad . . . isn't here to experience this," he said.

Both groups had been planning for the trip for months. The women of St. Paul rose before dawn Saturday, toting canes and heavy bags. As they waited to board at South Station, a friend, 71-year-old Charles Stead, handed each a red rose and wished them well.

"Come on, guys!" said Doreen Hawkins, a retired postal worker. "We've got to go now."

After settling into their seats, they shared spicy fried codfish, coconut cake, and juice boxes. For the women, who have endured segregation and the sting of racial epithets, the celebration had begun.

During the nine-hour ride, they talked about their pastor's pending retirement and their roots in such places as Barbados and Sumter, S.C.

They also laughed a lot. Apologizing to a conductor for the time it took them to dig out their tickets, Hawkins got the group in stitches, saying, "We've got a bunch of old senior citizens here!"

"If only we had some Mount Gay rum," joked Moore, a retired sheet metal worker from Malden who is known as Mother Moore.

In Baltimore, their train glided past Obama's train, which had stopped on its way to Washington, and they mimicked a queen's dainty wave.

"We'll all remember this," Moore said. "We'll be beaming at each other every time we see each other. It's like we're the dignitaries."

When the conductor announced that they were 12 minutes from Washington, Moore exclaimed: "Open that throttle wide!"

Once in Washington at 6 p.m. Saturday, they prayed, thanking God for bringing them safely. Then they took a van to their hotel 30 miles outside the capital and stayed five to a room, with Hawkins, 78, on a couch.

The next morning, they embarked on a whirlwind day of worship and music at Ebenezer AME. They stayed through both morning services, took a break for lunch at Golden Corral buffet, and returned for the evening gospel concert, where they danced for hours.

At 10:30 p.m., filing back into their van, they were exhausted but uplifted. "It's hard to find words enough to say the experience that I've had so far," Moore said. "It's been breathtaking."

Then it was time to sleep, with the real celebration to come today.

The 28 Cambridge activists departed Sunday afternoon from South Station on a sold-out train.

"Happy Days are Here Again," they sang, softly at first but then more loudly.

Many are members at Old Cambridge Baptist Church and Church of the Covenant, and several have lived in the same housing co-operative near Inman Square for more than three decades.

Jim and Susan Stockard, members of the co-op, recalled previous journeys to the capital to protest the Vietnam War and to march for civil rights. Jim Stockard recalled the summer before his senior year at Princeton, when he joined the throngs on the Washington Mall for King's "I Have a Dream" speech. He and his wife returned when he was in graduate school at Harvard, bringing their children toting backpacks with peace symbols.

This time, they will stay with family in Alexandria, Va., and make the rounds at a few small parties.

Susan Stockard said she has been a lifelong Democrat, raised by a mother who volunteered for the Kennedy campaign. As a teenager, she was one of Kennedy's "Golden Girls" - a band of young campaign volunteers who wore white dresses, gloves, and straw hats with the Kennedy name.

"It was my first opportunity to fall in love with a president," she said, eyes glinting.

This is clearly her second. She has wept several times for Obama since his election victory, as has her husband. And though she and her friends' lifelong activist streak still burns, they said the time for chanting and protesting can wait.

"I want to feel what it feels like to be there," Jim Stockard said, looking up from his bifocals. "And to dance in the streets a little bit."

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com. Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com.