People across the nation are celebrating the coming of the new president and the hope for “change,” in America. That hope is crystallized with the President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration later today.
And on the eve of the inauguration, and serendipitously on Martin Luther King Day, the president-elect spoke to the power of hope through the vision of the late Dr. King.
“His was a vision that all Americans might share the freedom to make of our lives what we will; that our children might climb higher than we would,” said Obama.
“Tomorrow, we will come together as one people on the same mall where Dr. King’s dream echoes still. As we do, we recognize that here in America, our destinies are inextricably linked. We resolve that as we walk, we must walk together. And as we go forward in the work of renewing the promise of this nation, let’s remember King’s lesson - that our separate dreams are really one,” he added.
An estimated two million people are expected to attend the inaugural parade and another 13,000 are estimated to participate in the parade itself. At the end of the parade, when Mr. Obama takes his oath of office, he will be sworn in using the same bible used when Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office. He will be the first president to take the Presidential oath with the bible since 1861.
Amid a global financial crisis, war in the Middle-east, and facing various environmental threats and human rights abuses throughout the world, Mr. Obama said in his speech in Baltimore, Saturday, that facing these challenges is the reason why he chose to run for president.
“What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that those first patriots displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives - from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry - an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels,” Mr. Obama said.
