Wow.

Today was a day that I truly felt proud to be an American. A day that I truly began to grasp the significance of what America was intended to stand for and a day that I began to understand what a long road was traveled in reaching those ideals. Today was a day that had nothing to do with politics or political agendas or political ideologies. It had nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats, liberalism or conservatism to me. It had everything to do with me being able to walk into my school that is filled with brown and black faces and know that the skills and knowledge that we strive to teach can truly take them anywhere they dream and desire to go....that we can, for the first time in America's history, tell our children that no dream, no achievement, no title is beyond their reach because of the color of their skin.

I got chills as I watched Obama place his hand on the Lincoln Bible (the President whose understanding and commitment to the true meaning of freedom made today's event possible) and promise to protect and defend the very same Constitution that only a few generations ago would have defined him as only 3/5 of a human. I got chills as I listened again to the words of Dr. King that were only a dream 40 years ago...but realized that the day has come in America where someone can be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

Today was amazing because it gave HOPE. The meaning and significance of the day was so deep, so far-reaching, so powerful that I think we all struggle to find the words to describe it. But to see how far our country has come... to recognize the sheer evil and ugliness that it is slowly managing to rise above...that gives such an umatchable feeling of hope and possibility. All across the nation, in all of our little corners of the world, we are surrounded by imperfection, by struggles, by pain, and by things that are not as they should be. We are surrounded by injustices, by the consequences of evil and wrongdoing. In our little corners of the world, we are all fighting for something. We are all fighting to make something better. Our motivations and ideals and goals and values may be different. And our foes may be different. But at times our weariness and our discouragement can be the same. The feeling that what we're doing doesn't matter, that things won't ever change can attack us all. But today symbolized that sometimes things can change. I'm sure that fifty years ago, there were plenty of people who looked at the injustices, hatred, and dehumanizing mindsets around them and felt there was no way to change it...that every attempted step forward only led five steps backward. I'm sure they felt change would never come and I'm sure it was tempting to give up...to resign themselves to the "way it is." We've all felt that at times no matter what our personal struggle or battle is. But what today is proof of is that we shouldn't give up...that change is possible! Mindsets and beliefs and people can change! We need that hope so desperately, or else what are our lives about? Our lives and our personal missions would be futile and meaningless if we had no hope that change is possible, no matter how huge the foe may be, no matter how deeply entrenched it may be. America won a victory today against a massive beast... a beast that has had its claws in the core of our nation since its very beginning. Although it is not the final victory against racism and hate, and although there are many more battles to fight, today was a day that meant the beast is weakening its grip....that after a 300 year struggle, people are overcoming. And that to me, that means that no matter what the beast is that we're up against, we can have hope...hope that it can be overcome.

We will never know the millions of struggles and sacrifices that have been made along the road of history in the name of protecting freedom and protecting justice. We will just never know and never fully understand. We get glimpses of it when we look back at what history has captured...but it only has record of a few people who paved the way. There is no way to record every American along the way who made some personal sacrifice, who stood up to someone, who attended meetings and marched in protests and participated in boycotts, who risked their jobs or even their lives, who watched their children suffer through tauntings and abuse, who signed up to fight bloody and ruthless wars in foreign lands, who spent hours composing legal documents for court battles, who sat in jails and prisons, who made signs and sang songs and wrote letters and made dangerous friendships, who went without sleep and without food and who cried tears of pain for those injured in the fight. But without those countless sacrifices, of people walking by faith and not sight, of believing that things could be different, despite all odds...without people willing to lay down their lives for an IDEA...today wouldn't have happened. But it did. And thus the awe at what transpired today. And the hope that it inspires.

So regardless of our political positions or even our moral convictions, I feel that today is a day to be proud....proud of our nation whose ideals of freedom, of democracy, of justice for all are finally being portrayed to the world. In a major way, America is finally becoming all that it says it is. So tonight, I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. I'm an American and I'm really proud to say so.