President Barack Obama views a portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama before
a church service at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.,
on Inauguration Day, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
From Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall: Guided by the ancestors
When I heard these words spoken by President Obama at his second inaugural
We the people declare today that the most evident of truth that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall
and the echo of those same words in the invocation delivered by Myrlie Evers-Williams
we celebrate the spirit of our ancestors, which has allowed us to move from a nation of unborn hopes and a history of disenfranchised votes, to today’s expression of a more perfect union…
we ask for your guidance toward the light of deliverance and that the vision of those who came before us and dreamed of this day, that we recognize that their visions still inspire us. They are a great cloud of witnesses unseen by the naked eye, but all around us, thankful that their living was not in vain.
I was moved.