Elation in Southeast D.C.

Standing at the corner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenues in Southeast Washington, Venisa Young had four words for America: "Get ready for change."

Up the street, a cluster of children walked on the sidewalk, grabbing tight to a rope held by their teachers. One teacher, dressed in an Obama hat, a rhinestone-encrusted Obama T-shirt and an Obama button, called out "Who's our president?"

"Obama! Obama!" the children responded in unison.

In a small take-out restaurant, the radio was tuned to a station taking people's calls celebrating what the announcer called "Obama Day." The woman working the grill wore an Obama cap and a huge smile.

The day after Barack Obama became America's first black president, people all over Southeast D.C. were beaming. In this struggling section of the District, residents were optimistic that the Obama administration will tackle – and perhaps even solve – some of the area's entrenched problems.

Southeast D.C., a predominantly black community, has some of the city's highest crime and unemployment rates. Nearly a third of the area's residents fall below the federal poverty line, according to the 2000 census .

Young, 41, has lived in the area for 15 years. She said homelessness, truancy and a lack of services for the neighborhood's many seniors are the biggest issues facing Southeast.

She thinks Obama will unite official Washington and the "thriving citizens" of the city to create local change. Obama will "have us realize we're not separate, we are one," Young said.

"I think he'll be for the people," said Aaron Robinson, 25. "The people that actually live in the city, work every day, don't pass the laws, but the regular ordinary people."

Robinson and his wife Candis, 24, are raising two young daughters in Congress Heights. They would like to see lower crime rates, higher housing prices and more businesses and restaurants in the area.

Candis Robinson said she thinks Southeast will change under the Obama administration.

"It'll be more than just a place to live and a place to survive," she said. "It'll be more of a community -- a vibrant, thriving community."

To create that thriving community, Southeast needs more jobs and a better education system, said David Brewer, chairman of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 8B in Ward 8.

Brewer, a D.C. native, has worked in city government for two decades. Having seen presidents come and go, he cautions that Obama "can only do but so much."

But Brewer hasn't given up hope.

"This new election, new energy, new attitude, might bring about a new city," he said.

On the other hand, Ephrame Kassaye, 31, said Obama cannot focus too much on the District.

"America is big," Kassaye said. But "if the economy is better, that means he's doing something for Southeast. People are going to have jobs; they're not going to rob people."

Kassaye, who is originally from Eritrea, owns a convenience store in Anacostia, which features a life-sized cut-out of Barack Obama. He was inspired to buy the cardboard candidate after meeting Obama in the flesh.

Before opening his store, Kassaye worked as a bellboy at a Marriott hotel in downtown D.C., where Obama stayed during the campaign. Kassaye was hailing a cab for a hotel guest when he saw the senator.

"I called his name," Kassaye said. "He walked towards me, 15 feet, to shake my hand,"

Asked if he would tell that story to his children, he laughed.

"I'm telling everybody," he said. "Anybody who comes to the store! You're talking about my children? I'm telling you!"

The optimism and excitement on display in Southeast D.C., is not just because Obama is black, said Gerald Horne, a writer and historian. It's because he is not conservative, Horne said.

"If Obama was Condoleezza Rice, he would not be embraced by the community," he said. "It's not just melanin."

For Aaron Robinson, Obama's skin color does matter. Having a black president changes his sense of possibility, he said.

"I can look at my kids, and I can look them in their face and tell them, 'You can really be anything,'" Robinson said.

"I can tell my kids that you can be the next president, and they can look at me and be like 'Yeah, I can, because now we have proof of it.'"