The cascade of extraordinary scenes will officially begin Tuesday, with the nation's first inauguration of an African American president on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, in a city south of the Mason-Dixon Line, as the oath of office is sworn on Abraham Lincoln's bible.
It will pick up speed with the first family taking up residence in the White House, a home rebuilt by slave labor after being torched in the War of 1812. And, so powerful has the ongoing civil rights struggle been to the history of a country dedicated to the proposition, if not yet the functional reality, that all people are created equal, the profound succession will continue into the foreseeable future.
One event that should be especially moving is likely to unfold sometime next year. It will happen out on the National Mall, America's proverbial "front yard." Down at the edge of the Tidal Basin across from the Jefferson Memorial, President Barack Hussein Obama will, in all probability, officiate at the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial, in tribute to the life and legacy of the black civil rights leader assassinated in Memphis in 1968. With the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as a distant backdrop, a compelling circle will close, inscribing the content of character rather than the color of skin.
As it closes, an unparalleled opportunity will simultaneously open up. With America's eyes glued to the galvanizing moment, the Obama administration should seize the chance to begin the hard and expensive work of repairing the National Mall itself. Tragically, America's front yard has gone to seed, its dilapidation over a generation chronicled with increasing regularity in the press, including The Times. The embarrassing disarray represents the larger state of the nation, and the time has come to fix it.
Deferred maintenance alone stands at an estimated $350 million -- without necessary improvements figured in. The National Mall should be a priority in the rehabilitation of America's crumbling infrastructure, a target of Obama's economic stimulus spending.
To accomplish it, the Obama administration should get behind the Third Century Initiative, a well-thought-out proposal from a D.C.-area community organization of the type the president has championed in his rise to power. Brainchild of the National Coalition to Save Our Mall, a savvy citizens group founded nine years ago in the controversy over the poorly conceived but since-completed World War II Memorial, the initiative was born in 2004. It languished during the Bush administration, even as the troubles mounted.
