A Change is Gonna Come

On Tuesday, millions of people will squeeze into a 3.5 square mile space in downtown Washington, D.C. to watch Barack Obama become the new president of the United States at the 56th Presidential Inauguration. Naturally, a group of Ohio University students will join the bunch, including three of us here at the Athens NEWS. We leave on Friday to begin the 355-mile road to the White House, and want our readers to join us.

To keep up with the events, we have created a blog at http://athensinauguration.blogspot.com , which will be updated regularly throughout the weekend. Here we’ll post words and pictures to show what we’re experiencing, so Athens can follow us on our adventures in the capitol.
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The theme of the ceremony this year is “A New Birth of Freedom,” commemorating the 200th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth. In his famous Gettysburg Address, Lincoln used these words to show his hope that the sacrifices made by those who died for the United States would lead to a “new birth of freedom” for the country. And 46 years and one day after Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington, our first African-American president will assume presidency in the same place. Some people have been waiting for this event forever, but for young people like us, this is just the beginning.

For most of us college students, this was the first time we had the chance to vote for a presidential candidate. This was the first time that serious issues such as the economy and healthcare became reality for us, as opposed to just topics that show up in the newspaper. This is the first time that politics really has a direct impact on our lives, and although we will go to the polls many more times, we will always remember 2008 as the first time our votes really counted.

And going to a presidential inauguration ceremony will be a first for me. I have never been to an event of this magnitude in my entire life, let alone Washington D.C. itself. This experience is going to be surreal, to say the least.

Besides being crammed into a space with tons of people, I don’t have any idea what to expect this weekend. But I do know that after all those nights of staying home to watch the debates on TV last quarter, being able to see the end of the campaign trail and the beginning of a new presidency in person will be an incredible experience. And by adding the blog to your RSS feed and checking it regularly, you’ll be able to watch the excitement unfold as we do.

--- Kristin Majcher