Godspeed Obama

written on 1-22-09

2 days ago we (23 students in our Leadership Fellows Program & another faculty member) left Elon headed into the heart of Alabama, the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. What was even more memorable is that 2 days ago the first Black President of the United States was inaugurated into office! Truly remarkable. We listened on the radio and stopped for lunch just in time to watch history in the making -- it gave me goose bumps as I sat, glued to the screen...

1.8 million people were in D.C., 1.8 million of the most diverse crowd I have seen in a while, can it really be? Has our nation finally become one that recognizes that all men are created equal? I'm not saying that we still don't have work to do, but WOW! Today, I am hopeful.

These past 2 days we have been to Birmingham and to Selma, and we have just arrived in Montgomery. While in Birmingham we toured the Civil Rights Institute (which is across the street from the Kelly Ingram Park, where the peaceful demonstrators, including children, were fire-hosed); the 16th Street Baptist Church, where four girls, Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley were killed by a bomb; and we took a tour of the city, getting to see famous landmarks like Fred Shuttleworths church & house. It has been full days taking in history through various mediums.

We got lucky because while we were at the civil rights institute, the first Black Mayor of Birmingham, Richard Arrington was there -- we heard him speak and at one point I was moved to tears. He told us about a time that he walked into a burger joint to buy his kids some hamburgers (b/c his friend told him that they served Blacks). He stood at the counter and was told they serve him around back (where Blacks had to go in that day and time), but not at the counter. His inner struggle was, did he go around back and buy the burgers, degrading himself, or did he disappoint his kids and have to explain to them at such a young age? How many others have stood in that same predicament? How many spirits did we allow to be crushed by this oppression? It disgusts me and yet I know somewhere my ancestors were a part of this oppression.

We have stood inside & outside churches that have been instrumental in the movement and we have soaked up history through tour guides and museums and today we walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, landmark of Bloody Sunday. We filed by two's and symbolically marched...

As we crested the top of the bridge and began our descent down the other side all I thought about was the bravery of those men and women that marched to that police line, unarmed, marching peacefully into billy clubs, tear-gas and chain whips. A people with a resolve so strong that they changed a nation. The brothers and sisters that united together because they believed this nation could change -- they believed enough to risk their life. (What have I ever believed in enough to risk my life?) And today we have a Black President -- Godspeed Obama!