From King's 'I Have a Dream' to Obama Inauguration

 

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Harrison, who flew a friend's plane to Washington, D.C., to hear Martin Luther King, Jr., speak almost 46 years ago, is returning to D.C. to witness Obama's inauguration, this time in a friends' car.

"I never believed that this would happen in my lifetime, and that's why I want to be there," Harrison told ABCNews.com. "There has been such a suppression of what African-Americans have contributed to this country."

Harrison said he faced racial discrimination from an armed forces sergeant when he first tried to enlist as a pilot.

"He said we don't train you people to be pilots -- and I was offering everything that I had, which was my life, to be trained as a pilot to defend my country and I was kicked in the face," he said.

After persevering and becoming a pilot, Harrison and others returned home from the war only to face more discrimination and exclusion from victory parades.

"I never thought that something like this would occur," Harrison said of Obama's inauguration, "and I think it's just wonderful."