What an emotional and wonderful day today was on campus. Today Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. For the first time in a very long time, I felt united. I felt like there was hope to over come ignorance and evil. I felt like maybe the insanity of the last eight years could be forgiven, or at least some of the damage done could be reversed.
I covered the inauguration on campus for The Michigan Journal. In Kotchoff hall, there must have been over three hundred students, faculty and staff, all sitting perfectly quiet as the proceedings played out on the jumbo screens in the hall. Soon it was standing room only, and people were pouring out of the main hall and into the hallways for a chance to watch history being made. I know as a journalist I should aspire to have a perfect unbiased attitude, but I could not. Perhaps that comes with time. I got as quietly swept away as I could, only clapping a hand full of times and not cheering, though I wanted to scream and yell and proclaim what a good thing we had done and what a great man we had elected.
Yo-Yo Ma played the most haunting and beautiful piece. The music was specially arranged for Barack Obama's inauguration. In the middle of this magnificent cello orchestration a newscaster for CNN cut in and said 'We would just like to mention that it is now past noon and though he has not been sworn in Barack Obama is now officially the president of the United States".
The stirring silence was replaced with thunder of applause and cheering. But as quickly as it irrupted, the silence sank back in as the music played. There was perfect silence for the rest of the piece.
When the chief justice asked all to rise for the swearing in for the president everyone in the hall jumped to their feet, ecstatic. The entire room laughed as President Obama fumbled nervously over the oath, Lincoln’s bible under his normally stead hand. After the swearing in the crowd cheered again.
The tears didn't come until the speech. True to form, Barack Obama gave a gut wrenchingly beautiful speech. Something I'm sure my children will be memorizing along with the Gettysburg address and JFK's Inaugural address. I saw many red rimmed tear filled eyes as he spoke of restoring America's place in the world and wiping away the divisive politics of old. I choked back a fair amount of emotion myself, realizing that for the first time in my adult life, I was proud to be an American. I was proud of America. Not because we elected a black man in a seemingly racist society, but because we elected someone with so much vision and compassion. We elected someone who can stare unblinkingly into the eyes of millions of Americans and with total conviction tell them that not only will we fix America, but that we will do it together. Not only that but, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we had the power all along.
Although there are the naysayers. The FOX network is already pulling apart Obama's speech, that was to be expected. It is the presses job to not fall in love with the government. I will soon have to pull my head out of the clouds and start asking hard questions of the administration myself. Still, as professionally aloof as I need to be, I am still part of this movement. I never will forget this day.
