A Dream Deferred...

This day is about more than just Obama taking office as the first African-American president of the United States. With him he brings his family, who has the power to serve as a role model for African-American families everywhere.

There is a book being published that is comprised of letters various women sent in giving their words of advice/encouragement for the nation’s next First Lady. I’ve been thinking about that today, and I decided to write my own letter to Michelle (though it obviously won’t be published). Here’s an excerpt:

“When I look at you, a whole lifespan passes before my eyes. I see the hands of old slaves, bruised and calloused, stained with oppression. I see their faces, hard lines carved out of determination around their eyes. I hear faint notes of the old Negro songs my grandmother used to sing when I was a child. I hear the timeless words of Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King, Jr, of Maya Angelou and Frederick Douglass. I think of the first-generation college student, of the single mother struggling to raise 2 boys, I think of the young minority child who can now see someone who looks like them in the White House. I see generations of strong women from Coretta Scott King to my own mother. When I look at you, I see me. I see everything I've always had the potential to become.

Tomorrow, standing on the Capitol, you will carry the weight of the world on your shoulders-- a history marred by oppression and watered with tears, you will carry the doubt and denial of those who do not wish you well, but most of all, you will carry an extraordinary hope. A hope whose seed was planted years ago in the hearts of our ancestors, the hope of a people who held onto a dream against all odds, who knew that without struggle there can be no progress. And as you stand before the thousands of others who see themselves in you as well, you will know this isn't nearly the end of our journey, but that when we work together, dreams do come true."

It's going to be absolutely beyond belief.

--Sommer