Black Americans ride the buses to witness history

Eager to witness history in the making, students from Morehouse College in Atlanta rode buses 12 hours to Washington for today's inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States.

Thousands of buses and more than 1 million people were flooding the center of the capital to watch the swearing-in of the country's first black president.

For African-Americans in general and Morehouse students in particular, the moment is a watershed.

Slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. graduated from Morehouse, a college for black American men that places emphasis on leadership and aims to give students a sense of moral and civic responsibility.

"It is a very deep part of history being made and I don't want to miss out on it," said Malcolm Meredith, 18, who like several other students was visiting the capital for the first time.

Hundreds of Morehouse students made the trip, which meant a sleepless night on the bus and hours spent standing in the cold waiting for the inauguration ceremony and a parade that would follow, part of festivities billed as the biggest in years.

Arriving at 3 a.m., one group of students spent two hours walking the streets in freezing temperatures directed from one point of entry onto the Washington Mall to another by officials who all seemed to give conflicting advice.

The Mall, a large park in the centre of the city, provides the best vantage point for those without tickets.

But the weather and getting lost did little to dampen the spirits of the surging crowds.

"I've always hated cold weather but I am dealing with it and it is not affecting me because I am so excited," said Everett Dixon, 21, an art major at Morehouse.

The act of riding a bus to push for change has played a significant role in black American history. Some students said they had been brought up to see struggle and celebration as part of their racial identity and they wanted a part of what their parents and grandparents had experienced.

Rosa Parks is credited with helping ignite the civil rights movement by refusing to get up from her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 to allow a white passenger to sit down as mandated by law.

In 1963, tens of thousands of people rode buses to the capital for the March on Washington, during which King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, widely regarded as the high point of the civil rights movement.

Black and white activists rode buses together on "freedom rides" into Southern states in defiance of segregation laws. Many were attacked and beaten by crowds of angry whites.

In 1995, huge numbers again rode buses for the so-called Million Man March in Washington of African-American men.

For some people heading to Washington, Obama's inauguration represents the fruition of decades of struggle. Civil rights leader Joseph Lowery, who was born in 1921 and attended the March on Washington, is due to give the benediction.

Reflecting in an interview on the 1963 march and its legacy, he said it was the most "emotionally challenging" moment of the civil rights movement to that point.

"It was the first time we had called on the nation ... to join us in searching for jobs and justice and freedom," said Lowery. "We didn't know how the nation would respond."