Inauguration Day: I Give You President Barack H. Obama
By Katwy Heru on January 21, 2009

Faithful readers! How can I begin to share with you the very essence of the feelings I felt this day? Can mere words fully express my most innermost sentiments as I felt my spirit lifted upon the wings of ancestors who hoped, prayed, sacrificed, died, cried and dared to dream so that we and all of our children, and their children's children, might one day know what true freedom can feel like? Am I capable of imparting the images that portrayed so much of what moved Reverend Rick Warren to tears? Or, for that matter, relay how it was to receive the gift of his invocation that was so moving and heartfelt as he seemed to weave in those experiences in a prayerful tome that seemed to recount pivotal aspects of our American experience?
How can I attempt to frame the auditory refrains from our own Queen Mother of Soul, Aretha Franklin, as she returned us to childhood and had two million people swaying to the goldness of her voice in unison and union? Like babes in a cradle we all felt her motherly kiss as she sang "My Country, Tis of Thee." Thank you Queen Mother for giving me that grace filled experience as it soothed my soul and expedited my connection to everyone around me and beyond. She delivered me from the solitude of being one IN two million to becoming one WITH two million.
How can I express the well spring of emotions that I felt as the various luminaries that we have all grown to respect, and dare I say love, took the stage to create the space for President-Elect Obama’s receipt of the mantle of the presidency?

It is my utmost honor to have been allowed to experience the remainder of this day in the company of so many kindred souls of every hue committed to the notion of being further steeped in this outpouring of support and openness to the power of possibility consecrated through a rededication to commitment and a sense of renewal. Those brave souls choosing to bear witness and be a part of this steady moving journey that I have recently dubbed the CHANGE locomotive. I have termed it so, and genuinely resisted the impulse to coin it differently, given the consistent fatherly chidings by our President-Elect to remember that this process will not take place overnight nor without sacrifice.