An important day for South Memphis...and President Obama

As I noted earlier, tomorrow President Obama will give the commencement address at Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, TN.

In the process, we're learning a bit more about the students, the school, and the community.

Senior year presented a crossroads for William Cain, the man of the house with an absentee father at 19 years old: Drop out of high school after his mother was assaulted and his house burned down, or keep working toward his diploma in a community burdened with high crime, intense poverty and broken families.

His decision to stick it out is being validated Monday, when President Barack Obama delivers the commencement speech to 150 seniors graduating from Booker T. Washington High School.

The visit may also uplift spirits in Memphis, where residents are still dealing with swamped homes and businesses from the city's second-worst flood in history.

Cain, a football player, said the devil was tempting him to "do your own thing" when he thought of dropping out and credits teachers, coaches, administrators and classmates for their advice to stay.

"I felt like giving up," Cain said. "But my teachers and my principal, they kept me inspired. They told me, 'Don't do this, do the right thing. You're going to make it out of here. If I have to kill you, you're going to make it out of here.'"...

Established in 1873 as the Clay Street School and the city's first to educate blacks, Booker T. Washington owns a rich tradition of educating African-Americans in Memphis...

The school struggled in the 1980s and 1990s, as the surrounding community fell on hard times because of crime, gang activity and drugs. The school is in a gritty Memphis community where the median annual income is less than $11,000 and the crime rate is the 14th-highest in the nation...

The close-knit school was presented with a challenge last year, when 20 percent of the students lost their homes after their public housing project was closed and demolished. But rather than transferring to schools closer to their new homes, most displaced students decided to stick with [Principal] Kiner...

"The students have needs, and if they aren't able to get them at home, with the family makeup that we provide here, we are willing to provide for the kids," said English teacher Tara Harris-Davis. "You cannot teach these kids unless you know where they're coming from. No one here is just a teacher."

The family atmosphere is apparent during graduation rehearsal. Acting more like a big sister than a taskmaster, Kiner tells jokes while instructing the seniors on when to sit and stand during graduation.

Without a class roster in her hand, she recited the names of seniors by memory and gave them fist bumps as they practiced coming up to the stage.

"I'm not going to be wearing makeup, because if I do cry ..." Kiner said before being interrupted by her laughing students.

I expect there will be many tears of joy shed tomorrow in South Memphis.

Everything I know about Obama tells me that this experience is exactly why he wanted to become President. I hope that the students, staff, and residents there can fill up his heart with joy as they share their accomplishments and triumphs with him. And I know they'll be inspired by him as well.

Students and faculty share a strong grasp of the history behind the visit by the country's first black president to Memphis, where people still remember segregation and the agony they felt when civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in their city in 1968.

"Dr. King came here for a reason and a purpose, and it's the same thing with President Obama," Harris-Davis said. "He's coming to inspire these kids, our kids."