On January 20, 1997, I stood several hundreds yards from the Capitol in Washington, DC surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people, the largest crowd I had ever seen. The occasion was the second inauguration of William Jefferson Clinton. I had just turned 18 and voted for the first time a few months earlier. Although I’d voted for the other guy, I was thrilled and grateful to be part of such a huge event. Thanks to a program called Presidential Classroom, several dozen high school students and I spent a few days in DC, heard from a variety of great speakers, and most importantly, attended the inauguration. It’s difficult to put into words how that experience felt. Words like pride, gratitude, excitement, hope, and wonder come to mind. Seeing so many of my fellow citizens coming together to witness history, the renewal of office for a legitimately and peacefully elected leader of the most powerful nation on earth, was a moment I won’t soon forget.
Today at noon EST, this scene will repeat itself, only this time it’s different. For the first time, a black man is assuming the highest office in the world, only a few decades after discrimination against blacks was made illegal. An unpopular president is leaving office after 8 years and a dubious record. Barack Obama, for reasons both obvious and ellusive, is filling our nation’s capitol with a sense of excitement and hope not felt in many years. Estimates of the crowd for today’s festivities range from 1-3 million people, surely more than I joined at Clinton’s inaugural. I wish I could be there with them.
Cynics may scoff and say Obama is just another politician, a silver-tongued weasel who tells the people what they want to hear and then fails to deliver. But for some reason I believe Obama is different. Sure, he can’t change the world overnight. Barring a bizarre miracle I couldn’t begin to understand, tomorrow the economy will still be in the toilet, and we’ll still be fighting two wars with no easy end in sight. But maybe, just maybe, with enough time and cooperation from the rest of Washington and the rest of the nation, Obama can turn things around. I am eager to find out.