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An Historic Day
By Neil Peterson | January 20, 2009
Today, January 20, 2009, is inauguration day. Since 1789 (the inauguration date was April 30 that year), when George Washington first uttered the now famous, “So help me God,” forty-three men have taken the oath of office. And today, our forty-fourth president, Barack Obama, will join them.
There have been many firsts through the years:
- Thomas Jefferson’s 1801 inauguration marked the first swearing-in held in Washington DC.
- When Martin Van Buren took the oath in 1837, he became the first president not born a British subject.
- James Buchanan’s 1857 swearing-in was the first known inauguration to have been photographed.
- When Lincoln was sworn in for his second term in 1865, African Americans participated in the inaugural parade for the first time.
The legacy of the man in this last-mentioned “first,” Abraham Lincoln, set the stage for what will happen today, some 144 years later-the inauguration of the United States’ first African American president
This may very well be the most significant inaugural “first” to date, one certainly for the books. And how significant that it occurs the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day created to honor the man who once famously shared his dream that his children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
For many, it seems that that day has come. And so millions of Americans are expected to gather in our nation’s capital today to witness this incredible, historic event.
Is it the man himself, Barack Obama, who has so many Americans flocking to DC? Is it the sheer historicity of today’s event? Or is it a combination of both? Whatever the reason, Americans of every stripe, of every political persuasion, can agree that today is momentous, a day for celebrating just how far our nation has come in rising above the racial prejudices that King dreamt of one day overcoming.
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