The Day the White House opens its doors to its first black incumbent

Divided by politics but united by history, Obama will meet Bush today for talks on key issues and a look around his new home

Barack Obama will arrive at the White House today for a tour with President Bush in which their political differences may for once matter less than the immense historic symbolism of his visit.

Yesterday, the official heading Mr Obama's transition team suggested that the President-elect would use his executive powers to make an immediate impact by reversing Mr Bush’s policies on issues ranging from stem cell research to drilling for oil and gas in environmentally sensitive areas. The two leaders also disagree on a new $100 billion stimulus plan favoured by Congress, as well as what to do about unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Mr Bush has also been gracious in inviting Mr Obama to the White House so soon after the election, saying that the President-elect’s “journey represents a triumph of the American story”.

He added: “It will be a stirring sight to watch President Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their beautiful girls step through the doors of the White House.”

There was a time, not so long ago, when the idea of blacks even crossing the threshold of the White House as anything other than servants scandalised much of America.

Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington, an African-American educational reformer who had been born into slavery, for secret talks in 1901. But news of the visit leaked, prompting the Memphis Scimitar newspaper to condemn the President for “inviting a nigger to his table”.

Half a century later, when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow the pianist Hazel Scott to perform at Constitution Hall because of her race, her husband, Adam Powell, suggested that the First Lady - as a member of the organisation - might have done more to help.

A furious President Truman banned the Congressman from visiting the White House again. It was not until 1955 that a black man, Frederick Morrow, held a political position in the White House as a junior adviser on desegregation to President Eisenhower. But Mr Bush has done more to break barriers than most of his predecessors. He has appointed successive black Secretaries of State in Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

Today he and Mr Obama will stroll to the Oval Office along the Colonnade between the residence and the West Wing. Michelle Obama and the First Lady, Laura Bush, will have their own private meeting while their husbands discuss business.

Mr Obama has gone out of his way to emphasise that Mr Bush remains President until January 20, but he has also indicated that the economic stimulus package opposed by the White House must be passed “sooner or later”.

Yesterday John Podesta, the head of Mr Obama’s transition team, confirmed that a review was already under way of Mr Bush’s executive orders. “You see the Bush Administration even today moving aggressively to do things that I think are probably not in the interest of the country,” he said.

“There’s a lot the President can do using his executive authority and I think we’ll see the President do that." Mr Bush, under pressure from the Religious Right, has limited federal spending on stem-cell research. Mr Obama has backed the research, saying that it could help to find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s. At the same time, the Federal Bureau of Land Management is opening 360,000 acres of public land in Utah to oil and gas drilling, leading to protests from environmentalists.

Mr Podesta said the President-elect “feels like he has a real mandate for change - we need to get off the course that the Bush Administration has set”.

Although Mr Obama has stated that his first priority is the economy, advisers say he is having to weigh how far and how fast he can tackle other issues, including healthcare, climate change and energy independence.

Mr Podesta said that the new administration hoped to address many of these problems simultaneously. “There is a lot to be done,” he said, “but he is a transformative figure.”

On Saturday night he spent three hours with his wife at their favourite Chicago restaurant and spoke by telephone to world leaders, including Russia’s President Medvedev.

A Kremlin statement said they had “expressed the determination to create constructive and positive interaction for the good of global stability and development”. The prospect of an early bilateral meeting was apparently discussed.

But today at least, eyes will be fixed firmly on the South Portico of the White House where Mr and Mrs Obama will enter the building. Near the gates, a healthy trade has already begun in T-shirts placing the election victory last week in the context of a long battle for civil rights.

One states: “Rosa Parks sat in 1955. Martin Luther King walked in 1963. Barack Obama ran in 2008. That our children might fly.”

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5119913.ece