I have been trying to write this note for a while now. I didn’t quite know how to approach it because I wanted to make sense. There is so excitement in me right now and I just feel my brain jumping from one sentence to the next. Forty years ago Martin Luther King Jr. was asked “Do you believe that this country will have a Negro president?”, and his answer was yes he did believe that we would have a Negro president, in fact he believed that within twenty-five years it would happen. Though it didn’t happen in twenty five years, it is finally happening. I believe that there isn’t a better time for this dream of his to come true. In the United States of America for many years not having an African-American president seemed like something natural. Yes it might have crossed the minds of many but it was just a dream to much more. Some didn’t even bother to dream of having more or less becoming the first African American President of the United States. The day before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died he gave a speech and spoke to the people and told them that he has seen the promise land. He told them though he might not make it there with them but we will make it the promise land. For many years people didn’t know what to think about this promise land that Dr. King spoke about. Where was the promise land and when were we getting there? Over the years I feel as if many African American in this nation began to give up and lose hope. They let fear take over instead of holding on to this dream that the great Dr. King had for this nation. Fear of never being good enough, fear not making it the top, fear of always being judged by the color of their skin, fear of always being second best to the eyes of others, so many different aspects of fear. It is so easy to fear something than to have hope that one day things might actually turn around and get better. There were many African Americans with all of this fear in their hearts. Most of them began to blame society for their own actions. Actions that they took because they didn’t want to have hope that things would get better. What they fail to remember is that though they feel that they are going through the absolute worse; there have been many before them, way before them that have been through even worse, and things eventually got better for them so they will get better for you too. Around the time of 2005 I began to lose pride in this country though I was young, I was always mindful of the things that was going on. Just going to school I would see the way that black would put other blacks down. Even after everything we had learned about the past. But when Barack Obama decided that he was going to run for office, though I didn’t know much about him at that time, I took it upon myself to research him because I would be voting in the upcoming election. When he won the democratic nominee that was just amazing. I felt that since we made it that far that we were going to make it all the way.On Nov 4th, 2008 when he won Election night. I was just in awe. In the dorms, running the streets, screaming, crying, in shock, joyful, just in disbelief. This was the day that we were looking forward to for a long time. In President Barack Obama’s Victory speech he addressed the United States and said "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” After seeing the way he won the election 354-173 I didn’t need any more proof. America had elected their first African-American president. In the previous months I never saw so many people watch CNN or listen to the news. Everyone was truly ready for change; they refused to have the next four years look like the past eight. January 20th, 2009 a day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Barack Obama was officially sworn into office. Watching this historical moment made me relive Election Day again. I felt the same excitement and cried the same tears all over again. Just staring at him on T.V. in amazement knowing that he is our President and he is bringing change to this country just made me feel great about this country again. It made me actually proud to know that I am an American. What makes me even happier about Obama being our president is not that he is African American, it is the fact that he grew up in a family just like mine. He knows what it is like to be from a middle class family. He can actually relate to most of America unlike other presidents from the past. On top of everything younger ones could actually look at him and see that “if he came from the kind of family I come from that I could make it to where he is.” Now that Mr. Obama is President it is up to us African-Americans and the rest of the minorities to show America that we are capable of being at the top, that we are able to do a better job, and that we aren’t just taking up space here on Earth. Barack Obama is a well educated man and it is up to us especially the youth to strive and be the best that we can be. There should be no more excuses because we have made it to a place that many thought we couldn’t make it to. As President Barack Obama said it is time that this country started having Hope over Fear. From the beginning he told this country Yes We Can, now he is telling us Yes We Will and by the time he done in office we will be saying Yes We Did!
[]Quene
