Yes, We Can

In his second inaugural address, Licoln said:


With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.


So many will wax poetic on this historic day, and I suppose such an event can only be spoken of in the mysterious language of poetry. And there are none more poetic than Martin Luther King Jr., and none more correct when he says:


We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.


Each year, we retell the cutting story of Dr. King to our students who are increasingly growing up in a world which seems so different from that of Dr. King's. My daughter at two and half will live in a world in which a Black president is not such an historic existence. It will simply be. A fact to learn. A reality.


President Obama connects two worlds, that of my father and that of my daughter. My father knows of Montgomery and Birmingham and Brown because that was the news of the day. My Tate will know something new, something we are yet to experience.


"Yes, We can," is how President Obama said it. And, for the sake of my daughter, I hope it's true. For our sake, I hope that President Obama can be transcendent, because God knows we need it.