On Monday they will board northbound buses, joining thousands of others from all directions, a rolling motorcade pointed toward history.
Braxton Foushee will be among them. He marched on Chapel Hill's Franklin Street in the early 1960s because he wanted to sit inside Colonial Drug Store, where blacks were required to stand.
When his feet hit the pavement on Tuesday in Washington, he will witness the inauguration of Barack Obama, the country's first black president.
"It is monumental," says Foushee, 70. "I couldn't miss it."
This time, Foushee will happily stand.
The Triangle will be well represented in the nation's capital, where millions will gather to see the inauguration, either in person or on giant screens set up on the National Mall.
Buses are a symbolic and economical way to travel. It has been 53 years since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on one, jump-starting the Montgomery bus boycott. Later, Freedom Riders faced mob violence while traveling on buses through the South as they tested a Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation in interstate public transportation.
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