What a memorable night. After the election was called for Barack Obama, a couple friends and I ventured over to the Lincoln Memorial – by far my favorite monument that commemorates the last president elected from Illinois and the steps from which Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
It was a quiet, solemn setting. While thousands were block away celebrating outside the White House, there were only a dozen strangers gathered. Luckily a man brought a radio. We gathered around it to hear our new president’s acceptance speech.
Through the course of the speech, our group of a dozen grew to around fifty. It was amazing to look around into the teary eyes of these strangers, as many of them held each other and cried with one another.
Afterwards, a young African American guy who showed up looked over at me and said, “I just feel like hugging someone I don’t know.” Later I thought about how I grew up in a world where I could become anything I wanted to, even president of the United States. That’s probably not the world he grew up in, and I was envious of all the emotions he must now be experiencing.
P.S. It turns out a photographer from the New York Times reflected on this same experience, as well as a blogger at Sojourners.
