Where were you when history was made?

On Tuesday January 20th, 2009, the United States of America sworn in its 44th and fifth-youngest President...it's first Black President--Barack Obama. It was, and is a monumental history maker.

That is why, for reasons self-explanatory, it bothered me that on the day history was being made in my existence I was...at work. Not in Washington, DC, covering the inauguration for a big time magazine, but at work...at Washington Mutual on Chicago's Southside. As gregarious crowds gathered at the NAtional Mall in Washington, to watch history, I, Danielle Nicole Hester, aspiring magazine writer, was conducting deposit and withdrawal transactions, and listening to people blame the bank for them only having $10.26 in their checking account. By the time I got home and turned on my television to ABC, remnants of Mariah Carey's performance at the Neighborhood Ball played--lucky me! I imagine years from now, my kids coming home from school, sitting at the dinner table reading the assigned social studies chapter "The New Millennium," and asking, "Mommy where were you when Obama became president?" Will I tell then I was working at a bank during that time and was unable to watch him get sworn in? Or will I embellish on a story I concocted in my mind years before their existence? Having to work all day, then come home and watch the inauguration speech on Youtube, hours after it took place, made me feel like I had neglected the significance of the moment. I wish I could have told Washington Mutual I didn't need to work for them, and that I was not coming in to work because the inauguration of this nation's first Black president is more precedent then getting a pay check. But reality is a pay check is precedent, so there I was.

In hindsight, as I watched recaps of his speech on my Macbook, while sitting in bed, my body got tingles as our President spoke to all peoples and nations. My heart swelled with pride as he spoke of being the son of a man "who less than 60 years ago, might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath," and encouraged us to "mark this day with remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled." I imagined this must have been how our parents and grandparents felt on August 28, 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr gave his "I have a Dream" speech--history in the making. I imagined watching "Eyes on the Prize" videos and thinking how i wanted to feel the struggles and movements of the Black Power Movement (just for a day). And I imagined how good it would have felt to be a working journalist in Washington, DC, covering this moment.

Aside from his entire speech being inspirational, President Obama said something that stuck with me-- "we are keepers of this legacy." Each generation experiences something that makes them want to act and change systems of power. For Blacks, it has been a long struggle, and the struggle does not end now; it only continues. Moments like this--rare moments in time when your soul knows change is happening right in front of your eyes--are moments that no matter where you were, fact is you were there (in existence); living, breathing, able to see and sense its meaningfulness, able to talk to people who never thought they would live to see the day a Black man becomes President. This is what i will tell my children, not that I was working at a meaningless job and couldn't see an 18 minute speech; but that I lived during the time of Obama and his presidency. And prayerfully, I will tell them about how this man--a man for the people--helped restore our economy, our education system, our foreign affairs...our nation as a whole.