REBECCA ROBERTS, host:
In this country, thousands of buses will be headed to the capital. One of them will be coming from Birmingham, Alabama, filled with aging veterans of that city's civil rights campaigns. Jacki Lyden visited with these pioneers as they prepared to complete a trip that began nearly a half-century ago. Quick warning, one of these folks uses a bit of harsh, racial language. Here's Jacki.
JACKI LYDEN: They call themselves the "Civil Rights Foot Soldiers." Theirs is a smoke-filled office, plastered with the photos of hundreds of regular folk who marched in the 1960s and were beaten and torn by police commissioner Bull Connor's snarling dogs and water cannons. Their business manager is Shirley Gavin Floyd. She decided the night after an election rally that she wanted to do something for these historic demonstrators.
Ms. SHIRLEY GAVIN FLOYD (Business Manager, Civil Rights Foot Soldiers): When I looked at the screen, I was at the rally, and I looked at the screen and it said "President-elect Barack Obama," I really couldn't believe it. And I still think, and I was just like, this can't be real. I thought he was capable of winning, but I never thought he would really win it, right out like that. And I said, this is what the foot soldiers really marched for.
LYDEN: And so a bus trip was born - a no-frills, all-night trip that doesn't even start until late Monday because many of the foot soldiers want to attend festivities for Martin Luther King's birthday Monday morning. They weren't able to get inauguration tickets. They're not sure where they'll end up, but the foot soldiers say they don't care how close they get.
Ms. GAVIN FLOYD: Well, most people that's on the bus with us have stated to me they don't care if they even don't get the chance to see him. They just want to put their feet on that land at that particular time. And that'll be good enough for them.
Ms. GLORIA LEWIS RANDALL: It's like history being in the making, again. It reminds me of being a part of something that's good. And I'm just so glad that I'm going, you know. I am really glad.
LYDEN: Gloria Lewis Randall is 61, and her desire to go is shaped by a childhood defined by segregation.
Ms. LEWIS RANDALL: They had ducks out at the parks, and I wanted to see a duck. But the color of my skin was black, so I wasn't allowed to see a duck. I mean, how do you deprive a child from seeing just things that come so naturally? But, my father took me out to the park at East Lake to see that duck. And the police beat him with billyclubs and said, called him all kind of racist names like "nigger, nigger," you know, you know, you don't come here. And he said, "Well, my child wanted to see a duck."
LYDEN: Later, Gloria Lewis Randall would brave fire hoses. She still recalls how they stung her skin. The Reverend Jonathan McPherson remembers a different sting, the literacy test that black people had to take in order to vote.
Reverend JONATHAN MCPHERSON: Name the senators from Alabama in the house of Senate?
LYDEN: Reverend McPherson tutored people to pass those tests.
Reverend MCPHERSON: How many states are there in the United States? 50. Name the president of the United States? Lyndon Baines Johnson. What is the term of office for the president? Four years. Name the capital of the United States? Washington, D.C. The governor of Alabama at that time was the infamous George Corley Wallace. And they would even ask you some other questions not related to political, for instance, how many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?
LYDEN: Reverend McPherson also bought a ticket for the foot soldiers' bus. He's 74, he's had four back surgeries and his doctor advised him against going. He gave his ticket to someone else. For 40 years, he's been the pastor at St. John's Baptist Church just outside Birmingham. He recalls going to jail with Martin Luther King. It was on Good Friday, 1963, Birmingham Jail.
Reverend MCPHERSON: I never will forget it. When they put me in the cell, there was an elderly black gentleman there. The cell is cold, and there's a concrete floor. His name was Brother Meadows. And I asked him, I said, Brother Meadows, I said, what are you doing? This cell is cold, hard concrete. I said, you shouldn't be in here. And his words were to me, son, I'm going all the way, because I want to see what the end would be like. And sometimes I think, my God, if he had been allowed to live, he could have seen what the end was like.
(Soundbite of an electric razor)
LYDEN: Shaving a customer at his barbershop before a wall papered with the yellowing portraits of black leaders, James Armstrong, at age 85, is the very oldest of the Civil Rights Foot Soldiers making the bus trip.
Mr. JAMES ARMSTRONG: My daughter went to jail when she was 13 years old, sitting at the lunch counters. My boys went to jail sitting at the lunch counters. They didn't put them in jail, they put them in juvenile court because they were too young for jail. My wife in jail, I'm in jail, everything in the Armstrong house was in jail but the dog (laughing).
LYDEN: Frankly, his kids are worried over their father's making such a grueling journey. He has a pacemaker, but his doctor has cleared him, and he is going.
Mr. ARMSTRONG: I just want to be there, I just want to be there. And I can tell the story if I'll be there, that I was here, yes, indeed. It looks like my work has been done, because I listened to Dr. King when he speak, he said, he had been to the mountaintop and he looked over and saw the promised land, that he may not get there with us. When I look at the young man up there - promised land. That's what he was talking about.
LYDEN: He means of course, President-elect Barack Obama. And so, without even knowing quite where they'll wind up in Washington, the Civil Rights Foot Soldiers hope to arrive Tuesday morning and Reverend McPherson sends them off with this prayer.
Reverend MCPHERSON: We pray that almighty God will give them his traveling mercy and grace, that he will keep the driver alert and awake, and that he would be in the automobiles, the tires, and also the opposing drivers, that they will have a safe journey there, a safe stay while there, and a safe return to Birmingham, Alabama.
LYDEN: As these elderly foot soldiers shuffle along with the crowd this week, they'll know the steps they took decades ago culminate in one man's striding to the inaugural podium Tuesday. I'm Jacki Lyden, NPR News.
(Soundbite of gospel song)
Unidentified Singers: Satisfied with Jesus, satisfied with Jesus. I'm satisfied with Jesus in my heart, amen.