99-Year-Old Lubbockite Watches Inauguration in Awe
By: Lisa Carr
Updated: January 20, 2009
Thousands of folks who couldn't make the trek to D.C. to see the Inauguration, stayed here in Lubbock and watched history unfold on their televisions. On Tuesday, KAMC 28 sat down with one of Lubbock's oldest residents to see what she thought about this special day.
Bertha Key will turn 100 years old next month, and while she thought she had seen it all by now, she watched in awe on Tuesday as Barack Obama became the first African American President of the United States of America. She says, "I was proud because others had worked on it so long. I felt like they deserved it. That we deserved a black man." She says the country has come so far since the days she remembers of segregation, and civil rights activists fighting for equal rights for all races, but still she never thought a black man would be in the White House during her lifetime. "I didn't think it would be quite this quick," she says. Bertha says she's concerned President Obama will spend too much time his first four years concentrating on getting re-elected for a second term. "And, he will not introduce as many of his programs as he would like to," she says. But, she still has high hopes that eventually Obama will be able to help the nation in all the ways he has promised. "I hope he can do it because I think he has some good ideas."
Bertha Key will turn 100 years old next month, and while she thought she had seen it all by now, she watched in awe on Tuesday as Barack Obama became the first African American President of the United States of America. She says, "I was proud because others had worked on it so long. I felt like they deserved it. That we deserved a black man." She says the country has come so far since the days she remembers of segregation, and civil rights activists fighting for equal rights for all races, but still she never thought a black man would be in the White House during her lifetime. "I didn't think it would be quite this quick," she says. Bertha says she's concerned President Obama will spend too much time his first four years concentrating on getting re-elected for a second term. "And, he will not introduce as many of his programs as he would like to," she says. But, she still has high hopes that eventually Obama will be able to help the nation in all the ways he has promised. "I hope he can do it because I think he has some good ideas."
