Dorchester Native: Obama Is Post Civil Rights

Thousands of Massachusetts residents are in Washington today to mark the inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation's 44th president.

Among them is Kevin Peterson, who heads Dorchester's Ella J. Baker House and is the director of the New Democracy Coalition in Boston.

Peterson says Barack Obama represents a new black leadership style.

"I think he represents a new style that moves beyond the civil rights movement, in fact he is post civil rights. A leadership style which is about solutions and goes beyond the ideological contest, which we've had over the last 40 years."

Peterson says, for him, today marks the culmination of generations of struggle within the African American community.