My friends and I got up at 3:30 am at the Inauguration. To be a part of History.
But that the History also became a part of me.
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*** (Certain lines in this piece have been reverently and gratefully borrowed from Don McLean, Langston Hughes, Chuck Palahniuk , Bob Marley, and Barack Obama. Each of these borrowed lines is marked with an *)
It was freezing cold and the sun was not going to rise for a long time yet. I and my friends had pilled into the National Mall 4 in the morning. We waited for almost 8 hours, watching our breath freeze in front of our face, to be a part of the history. The Capitol Building spread out above us like post card thrown into a well lit freezer. But we didn’t freeze and we didn’t lose spirit, because over 2 million other people were pilled in next us , shoulder to shoulder and we kept each other warm. Being at the inauguration wasn’t about being there for the man, it was about being a part of each other. Hours later, as the sun rose over the Capitol Dome, I climbed up on top of a barricade to get a better view (the security guards kept pulling me down but I just got back up again lol). And as Yoyo Ma began to play the beautiful, mournful and triumphant notes on the cello, I wept.
We’d grown up in the 90’s: a generation lost in space. * We’d had no uniting challenge, to Great War, no Great Depression, not Soviet Union to struggle against. Chuck Palahniuk had called us "the middle children of history."* This was the moment when we finally woke up and remembered who we were. Where I realized who I was, not as an individual (I figured that out long ago lol) but as part of something greater than myself. As a Generation of Hope.
In that moment we, finally found our uniting principle, and it was not to rise up and destroy some evil empires like in generations past. My generation’s challenge was something nobler. After 40 years of cynicism, 40 years of people giving up on America, of no one really believing our country could be as great as we dreamed it could be; It was now the responsibility of my generation to restore our faith in each other. It falls to us to redeem America’s promise, to prove that America really can be every bit as great as we were taught it was in our 2nd grade social studies class. The Land of the Free. We believe America is great because we believe the people living in it are great, or at least... they have greatness within them. Sleeping. Waiting for a moment to be allowed to shine again.
With the deaths of John F Kennedy, Gandhi, Martin Luthor King Junior, Malcolm X and Bobby Kennedy. The people of America went into a long, angry denial. No one wanted to risk believing in something again, for fear that they’d be hurt again. It takes courage to believe.
So the hopes and dreams of generations of Americans were deferred. What happens to a Dream Deferred?* It slept. Growing cynical and angry, not seeing how bitter it had become. But when I was there in the national mall, standing shoulder to shoulder with 2 million people singing in unison about One Love and One Heart, and Giving Thanks to the Lord;* The captive dream was released again. The dream is not about the American government, it’s about the American people. It’s a faith that our neighbors and friends can move beyond hate. It’s a faith that here in our home, people can be a little less angry, a tiny bit more hopeful, and maybe just maybe we can come together to help one another and make all our lives just a little bit better.
I do not believe Barack Hussein Obama will be shot the way some leaders were of old. That was 40 YEARS AGO. I believe that the world has gotten a little bit better since then. Our country has gotten a little bit better, there’s just a little less hate and little more good. I have faith, not just in the ability of the secret service to keep him safe, but in the fact that there are actually less people in this country who would want to do such a thing. We got better and nobody’s noticed yet. Nobody dared hope until that cold morning in January.
I can’t prove that empirically. I, like the rest of those born into the generation of Hope have chosen to take that on faith. A faith born out of hardship, a faith that isn't new, that isn't black or white or Christian or Muslim but that pulsed in the heart of the first African village and the first Kansas homestead A faith in other people.*