History circled back on itself this morning.
As a fourth-grader in 1964, Joy Vanhook Nelson and nine classmates integrated Aycock Elementary in rural Orange County.
Racists called her names. The high-school student who drove the elementary school bus insisted she and her black classmates sit at the back. And the school was named for one of the leaders of the Wilmington race riots in 1898.
This morning, she watched the nation's first black president be inaugurated from a spot on the national mall.
"I'm just elated," she said. "Growing up in the hard south, integrating my elementary school and then to see this — a black president — you know what I think about that."
Nelson, 53, moved to Long Island, New York, in 2002 to teach special education, but she comes back to Cedar Grove during the holidays.
In December, she got together with five of her classmates.
"We stayed up until 4:30 a.m. reminiscing about integration — what our parents wanted for us — and talking about the election," she said. "Life is good."
