Summersville, W.V. — Black ribbons fluttered in the breeze as a homemade pinwheel bearing 29 names turned slowly, lending a splash of color to an otherwise overcast day in southern West Virginia.

Here, residents are still coming to grips with the state’s worst mining disaster in more than two decades. Part of that process continued Sunday, when President Obama spoke at a eulogy for the 29 coal miners who died in the accident.

It was with that awareness that Mr. Obama offered not only condolences, but also a concrete commitment to mine safety reform.

“In the days following the disaster, e-mails and letters poured into the White House,” Obama said. “Postmarked from different places, they often begin the same way: ‘I am proud to be from a family of miners,’ ‘I am the son of a coal miner,’ ‘I am proud to be a coal miner’s daughter.’ They ask me to keep our miners in my thoughts. Never forget, they say, miners keep America’s lights on. Then, they make a simple plea: Don’t let this happen again.”

A cause has not been determined in the April 5 accident at Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, but preliminary investigations by the Mine Safety and Health Administration suggest excess accumulations of methane gas and coal dust could be to blame.

“All explosions are preventable,” said MSHA administrator Kevin Stricklin. “It’s just making sure you have things in place to prevent one. It’s quite evident that something went very wrong here for us to have the magnitude of this explosion.”
Potential reforms

The blast, which occurred 1,000 feet below ground, left behind what West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin described as a “horrific” scene of twisted train rails and other equipment. There were only two survivors from the 31-member crew.

The Obama administration has not yet outlined its proposals for reform. But a few key changes are among the more probable, says Patrick McGinley, a law professor at West Virginia University who enforced mine safety laws in Pennsylvania as a former special assistant attorney general.

They are:

* Raising the required percentage of incombustible materials like rock dust, which are used to cover the lighter, more volatile coal dust.
* Increasing methane testing in the area where miners are working from every 30 minutes to every 15, or even real-time, and placing greater emphasis on detection instrumentation.
* Revamping the pattern of violation screening. Under current laws, companies receive a closure order only when they’ve accumulated enough final violations. Massey Energy, which owns the Upper Big Branch Mine, received 57 citations there last month – including one for failing to properly ventilate methane – and racked up $382,000 in fines, but many were being contested, keeping them from counting towards a closure order. If all citations and violations are allowed, even those in dispute, companies may be persuaded to resolve issues more quickly in order to prevent a shutdown.

For Mr. McGinley, the hope is that the federal government will act before momentum for reform fades.

“The fear with this disaster is like it is with virtually every coal mining disaster in the last century: that we say miners won’t die in vain and this will never happen again, but then as time passes, the concern about mine safety diminishes and there’s another disaster,” he says.
Obama’s visit: gratitude and skepticism

For locals gathered at Cox’s, a gas station and snack bar in nearby Pettus, W.V., anything the government can do to make coal mining safer would help. Larry Asbury spent 27 years working the mines in nearby Whitesville and said he’s glad Obama’s getting involved.

“It shows he has concern for the working class people,” Mr. Asbury said. “He needs to come down hard on safety in the mines. Every American citizen should have the right to work safe.”

But others weren’t so sure, noting Obama’s snub of West Virginia while on the campaign trail and attributing the presidential visit to little more than political grandstanding.

“It takes an explosion to get him here,” said Carl Asbury, Larry’s brother. “What was he doing six months ago? He could have been here and prevented this. It’s a shame it takes 29 miners to get blown up to get the politicians awake and enforcing the laws.”
Starting a dialogue

On Sunday, Obama chose to speak in broad terms rather than outline specific reforms.

“We cannot bring back the 29 men we lost,” he said. “They are with the Lord now. Our task, here on Earth, is to save lives from being lost in another such tragedy. To do what must be done, individually and collectively, to assure safe conditions underground. To treat our miners the way they treat each other – like family. For we are all family. We are Americans.”

It was a wise decision to stay general, says safety advocate and US Senate labor committee special adviser Ron Hayes. Obama is not broadly popular in West Virginia, given his desire to move the country off coal and toward greener power. But a dialogue can – and should – be opened.

“Right now, you have a situation where you have 29 dead miners and people still going in the mines, terrified, feeling guilty – a lot of times it clouds things,” Hayes said. “The blame game is going to be started, and they’ve got to blame somebody. This is a mechanism of the grief process, whether it’s righteous or not.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Brenton Sanders will always remember the import of the moment – both the poignancy and enormity of the first African-American taking the oath of office. But he will be carrying home something else as well: the civility and kindness of the throng of nearly 2 million people braving brisk temperatures to witness a piece of history.

The 16-year-old African-American from Selma, Ala., didn’t expect to see crowds of whites and blacks standing shoulder to shoulder, smiling, happy. He didn’t expect them to even look him in the eyes, let alone say, “Excuse me.” To him, the chemistry of the crowd may have been as much of an affirmation of the spirit of the moment as what was being expressed on the bunting-bedecked terrace a long – very long – distance in front of him.

“I think things are going to get a lot better,” he says with a blend of conviction and hope.
Brenton’s memories of the historic time on the National Mall are echoed by many of the adults and students from Selma who journeyed to the nation’s capital to see the swearing in of Barack Obama as the 44th president.

Every generation has its defining moments, ones that elicit the refrain, “Where were you when…,” whether it was Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech in Washington, or the first moon walk, or 9/11. For the students of Knox Elementary, this will be one of theirs, even though many of them aren’t yet fully aware of it.

Yet as they head home, they are reveling in the minutiae of the event even while working through its magnitude – a time of benumbed fingers and soaring rhetoric, of long bus rides and mass brotherhood.

“I’m not going to say I had fun,” says Tamira Bolden, 16. “But it was the best experience ever, if that makes sense.”

•••

The adults knew it would be a life-changing experience. Few of Knox Elementary’s children had ever strayed beyond the perimeter of Selma. For most, Washington, D.C., was a strange, exotic place. They knew the president lived there. They could identify the White House – sort of. They had heard of the National Mall, though they weren’t quite certain of its purpose – park or shopping center?

Yet they could tell you all about the man about to be sworn in as president, from his children’s names to the dog breeds he’d considered adopting as primoris canis. Barack Obama was very real to them, and they were excited to see his inauguration, whether it happened outside among bicyclists and joggers, or inside between Sears and J.C. Penney.

They expected to leave with Obama buttons and pennants, or perhaps one of the dozens of “I Was There” T-shirts. But no one, not even Knox principal Joslyn Reddick, could have anticipated the overwhelming surge of hope and patriotic pride the 43 students and parents are carrying back to Alabama. Ms. Reddick spent almost a year planning this trip, gathering donations and trip agendas, worrying and praying over her young charges.

She wanted them to witness a moment in history that would never happen again – the first black man laying his hand upon the Bible, pledging his fidelity to our nation – even if the lines were flubbed.

They knew it would be much colder than the South, so they prepared for it by outfitting the youngsters with enough apparel accouterments to survive a wilderness trek through the Yukon. The mittens, earmuffs, parkas, and pocket hand warmers proved little help, though, against the frigid 19-degree temperature.

Yet, afterward, the students agreed: It never would have been the same if they’d watched it on television. “I’d never been here before,” says Brenton. “If you were there, you just felt this rush from the people.”

•••

It didn’t start out that way. Students rubbed their eyes and stumbled down the stairs shortly after 3 a.m. Tuesday, climbing onto the warm buses and promptly falling back asleep for the long ride to Washington. At 5 a.m., they arrived at the corner of L St. and First and tumbled out into the frigid air. The capitol’s dome, splashed in shades of predawn blue, immediately greeted them, and all seemed to perk up.

But after a few minutes, the brisk cold became biting, and the light crowd intensified. By daylight, they were trapped in a sea of people, with even adults and teenagers clutching one another’s hands to keep from getting separated.

Reddick patrolled the outer edges of the group. “Knox, KNOX!” she yelled. “Keep to the right! Get out of the street!”

In the beginning, it was easier to stay together because most of the children and chaperones donned bright yellow scarves. By the time they rounded the first corner, they’d separated, but the error was quickly corrected and they continued walking.

“If I didn’t love Joslyn, I wouldn’t be doing this,” one parent muttered.

“Ain’t that the truth,” another answered.

The crowd soon swelled, and all anyone could do was press forward. People began jumping barriers, trying to reach the National Mall. One group was flagged away by a police officer, only to find themselves facing a hedge of holly at the Department of Agriculture.

For one small Knox group, it took nearly four hours to reach the mall. Who knew where the others were. Things weren’t turning out as they’d planned.

And then, suddenly, it all came together – why they’d needed to be here so much, why they’d endured the arduous trek just to squint at a distant screen. As they reached the foot of the Washington Monument, so starkly white against a perfect blue sky, encircled by American flags, another sight resonated even more deeply: a rainbow of people of every size, race, and age standing together.

“It was very cold, and we walked about six miles,” says Ashley Simpson, 17. “I went through a lot of pain to get there, but looking back, that’s probably not going to matter. I didn’t see any racial tension going on. That was a shocker.”

All eyes turned to the monitors, and a cheer erupted as Obama took the stage. A murmur swept through the crowd as he promised change.

“It was an experience of a lifetime, something you will never ever forget,” says chaperone Dorothy Hatcher. “I didn’t expect to see that many people there. There were tears shed, and people hugging. I shed some tears, too.”

If the melting pot of people at the mall Tuesday – smiling, linking arms, waving flags, sharing blankets, lifting their voices in song – is any indication, the Knox students may be right: Change can happen, one American at a time.

“Everyone had that hope, that sense of possibility,” says Talisa Bolden. “Now we have
something to look forward to.”

SELMA, Ala. — The night Frankie’s mother didn’t come home, she suddenly knew how far her mom would go to bring about change. It was 1962 in Selma, Ala., and she was only 9. The idea of change enthralled her, even as a youngster. But at the moment she just wanted supper. And her mother had gone out to get a few last-minute items.

Frankie stared across the dining-room table at her father, her eyes asking an unspoken question – where is she? Then the phone rang. Her mother wasn’t at the grocery store. She was in jail. Ruby Walker had been arrested on the steps of the local courthouse with several others who were demanding equal voting rights for black citizens. At the time, more than half of Selma’s residents were black, but, given the phalanx of institutional and racial barriers, only 1 percent were registered to vote.

The protesters wanted to change that, to stop the intimidation and harassment, and eradicate the division between the races, which still left them shuffling through the back doors of doctor’s offices and restaurants.

It’s an indelible memory that Frankie, now the Rev. Frankie Hutchins, will be carrying today as she stands on the National Mall in Washington with more than a million others to watch the inauguration of the first African-American president.

As one of the adults traveling this week from Selma to the nation’s capital with a group from Knox Elementary School, she brings different emotions and motivations than the idealistic young students, all clad in their new winter clothing and visions of a race-free America. For her and many of the other adults, this is a spiritual journey, both an intensely personal moment and a time to celebrate what they and their forebears suffered and accomplished, as well as to see the opportunities facing a new generation.

Many had grandparents who were born into slavery. They themselves experienced the lash of racism and the Klan. Now they will be watching their children see a black man take the oath of the highest office in the land. “I couldn’t miss this event,” says Hutchins. “I’ve got to do this.”

•••

Hutchins is something of a pioneer herself. She is the first black female pastor of the Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church in Selma, where she has served for three years. The trip for her will be a family affair. Along with her two daughters, Talisa Bolden and Tamira Williams, she’ll be watching her grandchildren, Brenton and Brittney, witness a moment even her mother had never anticipated.

“I remember asking as a young girl why this was so important,” Hutchins says of her mother’s protests. “And she said, ‘Well, change needs to come so you will have a better life.’ ”

Ruby Walker’s mother was born into slavery, and she worked in Alabama’s cotton fields. She didn’t want her daughter to grow up believing this world of separation was to be borne without complaint. No longer would they bow their heads in submission. They were ready to fight.

Hutchins says she was inspired by her parents at an early age to take up the struggle, too. So when blacks and whites were given freedom to attend any school of their choice, she chose to do what few students in town were brave enough to do. She enrolled in the Albert G. Parrish High School and was soon joined by seven other black students. By the end of her first day, she realized she was in a different world, a world where she was unwanted.

“It was really the worst year of my life,” she recalls. “I was called ‘nigger’ every day. Leaves were thrown in my face. Students in class spat on the seats next to them because they did not want me to sit there.”

She thought it was because she was poor. The other girls had nice clothes. When her father bought her four new dresses, she was certain things would get better. “I went home, and I thought, ‘When I wear this nice, pretty dress to school tomorrow, they’ll accept me just like one of them,’ ” she says of her white classmates. By the time the school bell rang, she’d learned a harsh lesson: Nothing she did made a difference. “It hurt me so bad,” she says.

She came home that night and begged her parents to let her go back to the voluntarily segregated R.B. Hudson High School. “My Dad gave me a hug and he said, ‘Everything’s going to be OK. This is the change that your mother was talking about,’ ” she says.

Mr. Obama’s election has galvanized the city, but few more than this family. “That is the change that Martin Luther King Jr. was talking about, my mother talked about, and my father’s mother talked before,” she says. “I think it’s the most remarkable thing that could have ever happened in America.”

•••

Change has come slowly to Selma. Strip malls and big box merchants have infiltrated the area, and yet a third of the residents live below the poverty line. Schools are segregated by choice now. Especially on Sunday, there’s no blending of races. Sometimes Hutchins stands at her pulpit and looks out over the sanctuary filled with black faces. Across town, whites attend other churches.

All this is one reason Hutchins has been so adamant about attending the inaugural. She wants to honor what change has come about. Initially, she hesitated to take the trip. She knew it would be an arduous walk.

But she’s been exercising and doesn’t want to watch such a historic moment on TV. More than anything, she wants to see the fulfillment of her parents’ labors. “I’m mentally prepared for whatever I have to do, because it’s so important to my family,” she says.

Hutchins spent the night of Obama’s election phoning back and forth with her daughters. Talisa, the eldest, was working the night shift at Hyundai, and was depending on her mother for updates. Her younger daughter, Tamira, who is 16, was in her bedroom watching the returns as well.

“I was still on the phone, and she came running in the room, saying, ‘Mama, mama, he’s been elected!’ ” she says. “And I just threw the phone away and started crying as we rejoiced.”

She wants her children to understand the struggles her mother and she went through to get to this point. “It’s a moment in history,” she says. “To be there to witness this is the best thing that could have ever happened in our lives.”

SELMA, Ala. – Excited chatter falls to a hush as Knox Elementary School principal Joslyn Reddick enters the library. She peers into two large boxes, then casts a worried glance over the throng of fourth- and fifth-graders. The donated coats are small. There are gloves and hats of every color, but there’s not a matching set of anything.

Still, the Selma, Ala., community has been generous, and she’s grateful. When Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president next Tuesday, her students will see it firsthand, and it won’t matter if their socks match their shoes or their sleeves are too long. They will be there.

She hands Alexis Norwood, age 9, a slim package of pink thermal underwear. “They’re to go under your clothes,” Ms. Reddick says. “They’ll keep you warm when we’re in Washington.”

The girl eyes the clothing dubiously, then grins and returns to her cluster of friends, eagerly waiting to inspect the apparel. She tears the plastic carefully and slips her hand inside. Her eyes grow wide.

“I thought they were pajamas,” she whispers.

It’s a tiny detail, making sure the students are adequately clothed for the cold weather when they leave Sunday, but Reddick has left nothing to chance. Nearly a third of Selma’s 20,000 residents live below the poverty level, and long-abandoned businesses and shotgun houses border her 220-student, all-black school.

Reddick wants the children to see beyond graffiti-strewn walls, beyond limitations, beyond a town where violence is a daily reality. She wants them to witness something people in this racially torn bastion of the civil rights movement never believed was possible. She wants them to see a black man become president of the United States, to hear his voice ring out across the National Mall and know that anything is possible.

•••

Reddick has had to repeat that mantra to herself many times over the past year. When she presented the idea to parents last spring, no one was sure whether Obama would even receive the Democratic nomination. She spent the summer formulating a rough itinerary anyway.

She researched chartered buses and settled on a local bus line. She booked 25 rooms at a hotel in Waldorf, Md. By the time classes resumed, she’d taken on a new challenge – how to raise the $18,000 that had already been spent to see a man who had not yet been elected.

The students held a doughnut sale, but it brought in only modest funds. They barely broke even with a fall festival. Reddick had quoted a cost of $155 per student, but if the school couldn’t raise the money she’d have to charge more. Many families wouldn’t be able to afford it.

“Money was coming in, but it just wasn’t enough,” Reddick says. She e-mailed Obama and Oprah. No response.

Things got worse. Talk surfaced in the community that the trip was a bad idea. For most, it was simply a fear of the unknown. Many of the parents had never been to Washington. They didn’t know what to expect. The crowds worried them. Would their children get lost? Would they even be close enough to see Obama?

Few of the children had ever spent the night in a hotel or seen a city larger than Birmingham. “I know they’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to another world,’ ” says Lachune Simpson, a local parent. “There was a child at Knox who had never been to McDonald’s.”

A few older residents were haunted by history. They lived through the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. They recalled the violence that occurred in 1965 on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge – how 600 activists who attempted to march to Montgomery were met by police, beaten, and turned back on “Bloody Sunday.” They knew the tauntings of the Klan – intimately. Could something disruptive happen in Washington? A violent demonstration? A shooting?

Reddick watched in shocked dismay as parents began withdrawing their children from the trip. By Christmas, she wasn’t sure it was going to take place at all. Local factories were idling production lines. A major plant closed. People who had little money suddenly had even less. The hotel manager in Maryland called to say city fire codes required fewer students to a room than originally estimated.

“This might be a life-changing experience for some of my students, to let them see a different world and break the cycle of the community they live in,” Reddick says. “There’s a lot of drugs, a lot of gangs. I was trying so hard to raise funds and get people’s support. I just thought, ‘OK, I’ve done everything I can.’ ”

She called a parent, and they prayed together over the phone. By the time they were finished, Reddick’s faith was restored. She redoubled her efforts, and, slowly, more donations trickled in. Since then, there have been new setbacks, but she says she isn’t worried.

Knox Elementary is going to Washington.

•••

With less than a week before the trip, the reality is sinking in for everyone. Ms. Simpson clutches a list as she looks at insulated socks and hand warmers at a Wal-Mart. When she told a co-worker at Selma Waterworks she was going as a chaperone, the woman didn’t believe her at first.

“Both of us were in her office just crying, and right at that moment, I understood exactly what it means to people,” Simpson says.

She’s disappointed by the lack of support, but blocks out the negativity. “I think it’s so worth it,” she says. “At one time, we weren’t even allowed to vote, and [now] we have a black president.”

She glances at her daughter, Trenda, who’s trying on rhinestone belts with her friend, Brittney Sanders. The girls agree – the white belt won’t match the tasseled snow boots Trenda hasn’t stopped wearing since she got them for the trip. Clippings of Obama grace Trenda’s bedroom walls, alongside High School Musical and Jonas Brothers posters. New earmuffs and a scarf sit in a basket on her dresser.

Though the group won’t be touring the White House, as she had hoped, she’s excited anyway. She wants to go to the zoo. She wants to see the Lincoln Memorial. She devours everything she can find about Obama and the city he will call home for the next four years.

“Trenda’s always asking, ‘How many days left?’ ” her mother says. “That’s it right now.
Washington is the place.”