"There's not a Red America, or a Blue America, there's the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." ---Barack Obama, 2004

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I wish these folks were here today...

It's t-minus 90 minutes...

As Barack Obama prepares to take the oath of office today as the nation's 44th President ~ and the first African-American President in our history ~ I'm thinking about a few names out there who I wish could be present for this historic occasion.

  1. My grandmothers
  2. Gramps
  3. Michael Haugh & David Papadupolo, my two deceased fraternity brothers -- the former who helped recruit me
  4. Obama's grandmother
  5. Obama's mother
  6. Gandhi
  7. MLK (duh)
  8. Jackie Robinson
  9. Rosa Parks
  10. The bus driver who had Rosa Parks arrested
  11. Buck O'Neal
  12. All deceased Negro League ballplayers
  13. Curt Flood
  14. Branch Rickey
  15. The four little girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, and their families
  16. The men who gave rise to the KKK...make them see the white of Obama's eyes as he gives the oath!
  17. Miles Davis
  18. Johnny Cash & June Carter
  19. Lincoln
  20. FDR
  21. JFK
  22. JFK's son
  23. RFK
  24. Lyndon Johnson
  25. Louis Armstrong
  26. Sun Ra
  27. Brian Piccolo
  28. Walter Payton
  29. John Wilkes Boothe, with a front row seat after the metal detectors, a solid patdown, and a thorough cavity search
Of course, it's easy to imagine these folks looking from above and being present in spirit...especially those who this moment is linked to, such as Lincoln and MLK.

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