Inauguration Day

It’s January 20, 2009, you live in the US, what else is there to write about but the Presidential Inauguration?

Although our students had been hoping that classes would get canceled today, the university did not cave in, and instead offered a viewing opportunity in the large auditorium between 11:30 and 1:30. So at 11:25 my co-workers and I made our way downstairs, half-expecting to find a fairly empty auditorium, with only a few students scattered here and there. Instead, the auditorium was filling up fast with both students and faculty, while a large screen showed the Capitol building. A local television crew was setting up shop in the corner, and professional photographers were walking around snapping pictures. That is what you get for being an HBCU All them white folk wanting to know what y’all think of the whole shindig.

So as the students around us are playing with their cellphones and checking schedules, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them were there because their teachers were giving them credit. Sure, they want to see the inauguration, but why chose an auditorium full of faculty, while you could be partying in a dorm room? How politically involved are college students? Involved enough to party when Obama won, but sitting through a long and potentially tedious set of speeches? I wasn’t entirely convinced. Sure, I had seen them campaign prior to the election, but I also know them well enough to know that sitting through anything that does not move at an MTV pace is almost impossible.

Now I do know that our students feel strongly about politics, a feeling that was further corroborated when Bush made his first appearance on the screen, eliciting loud boos and catcalls from the students (and Steve, of course). And the first shot of Obama had students jumping up and down in their seats screaming, a few students raising their fists in the 1960s “Black power” style, and other shaking their books up in the air. A student behind me said; “Oh, I’m so excited, I don’t know anyone who isn’t.”

Then, when the inauguration began, the students quieted down, and proved me wrong. And, please frame this statement, but I loved every minute of it. They watched the screen with the kind of attention I wish I could get in some of my classes. They listened to the introduction, bowed their heads when the crowds were led in a benediction, and said a loud “Amen” when the reverend finished. Although they laughed at Aretha Franklin’s hat, gave a chorus of “hhmmm-mmm”’s after the statement “Dr. King and a cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven” raised the roof after Biden and Obama took the oath, and the girl behind me was begging people for tissues “Oh Lord, I just know I’m gonna cry, I am”, you could hear a pin drop during Obama’s speech. The students were listening. They were truly listening. Interestingly, that was when the local camera crews packed up and left. They were there to record the excitement in the African American community, and the fact that this community is just as concerned by the content of their new president’s speech as well as the fact that he is black is apparently not as interesting.

So I am proud today. Proud that this country elected its first black president. Proud that this country elected someone who appears to have a realistic view of what needs to be done. And proud that our students really care.