Generations

There are certain phrases you don’t want to hear before boarding a plane. Waiting to board my flight to Baltimore this morning, I heard one: “We would like to invite all of our unaccompanied minors to board the plane first. All 39 of them.” As the rest of us processed the meaning of the announcement, there were collective groans and sighs. And I confess that I too was concerned about how this would impact the flight – until I saw these 39 students. All of them were wearing white polo shirts with the inaugural seal on them – heading to DC to witness a great moment in American history.

In an amazing scene, I saw a black girl dropped off at the gate by her mother and her grandmother. Mom and Gram were both wearing Obama’s Yes We Can! buttons. This girl’s grandmother was clearly born into a segregated nation and I suspect that she sat in the back of the bus and used the ‘colored’ restroom not so long ago. Yet her granddaughter will see with her own eyes a black man named Barack Hussein Obama become the President of the United States in just three days.

As these students witness our country turning the page on a very difficult eight years, as they observe the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another, as they see with their eyes the almost unbelievable scene of the first African-American president taking his historic oath of office, I wonder what fires may start burning deep within them. I wonder how this trip may change the trajectory of their lives as they grasp the hope and optimism of this moment.

And I celebrate – for the first time in a while – a deep, abiding pride in this people called America and in the path we have chosen. Not just for the sake of my family – but for the sake of these students and their future.