How to Begin

Well, this day has gotten away from me. I remembered as I was heading off to bed that today was my day to post. But between an unexpected service call and an equally unexpected invitation to contribute an anthology, I forgot that it's Friday.
Rather than try to write about something, I'm going to ask for some thoughts about when and where to begin a story. My historical thriller is incubating as I work on other projects. But I need to get it done in the next few months. Current events are overlapping with my story -- case in point, HBO's decision to take down Gone With the Wind temporarily. It now has an introduction by Jacqueline Stewart, a film scholar. I haven't watched that yet because I'm torn. My thriller ends at the four-day premier of Gone With the Wind in Atlanta. I've done lots of research and gone to a museum in Marietta, Georgia. I'm going to watch the movie again, but I'm trying to maintain a delicate balance between what I know now and what my characters knew them. Stewart's introduction may be too much information.
 That brings me to a larger question. I could open the book on February 1939 with the Nazi rally in New York City, or April 1939 at Marian Anderson's Easter Sunday performance. In the first case, I start with the female protagonist; in the second, with my sleeping car porter, male protagonist. His story is the driving force in the thriller, but her story is going to be crucial to what happens in Atlanta.
Here are the two opening scenes in the rough first draft. Chapter 1 would begin the book with Ophelia's departure from Gallagher and arrival in NYC as the rally is taking place at Madison Square Garden.She accepts a ride from a couple who she doesn't quit trust. Jacob's first appearance is in Chapter 2. He goes to Anderson's concert, see Cullen, his foe, in the crowd and wonders why he is there. I could begin with Jacob, but then Ophelia's arrival in NYC would be dropped from the story. The reader wouldn't meet her until Jacob goes to Harlem. As is, the end of Chapter 1 would leave readers wondering what happened. 
Gallagher, Virginia

Monday, Feb. 20, 1939 
Ophelia                                                                                                                                                                                                           "All aboard!"    

Wheezing, trying to catch my breath, I stopped there inside the door of the colored car and looked to see where I should sit. A few people looked in my direction with blurry eyes. The others were asleep or trying to be. A man near the front coughed. A baby whimpered and began to cry. I started down the aisle, clutching the musty carpetbag I had stolen from the attic of the house I was escaping.

Or
Washington, D.C.
Sunday, Apr. 1939

Jacob

        Some lies are easy to believe, especially when people need to believe them. I thought about that later.
        But that Sunday afternoon all I had on my mind was getting my work done.

      As soon as I had finished my count of the sheets and blankets and my paperwork, I spoke to the conductor. Then I changed out of my uniform and almost ran out of the station.

      I was hoping to get there in time to get a place up front. The best I could do was half-way. But I was s close enough to see. I tugged up the collar of my coat against the brisk wind coming off the river and looked around.      

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Thoughts?