Oh What a Day

2009-01-20
By Sylvester Monroe

When Barack Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, few Americans had ever heard of him. By the time he finished, just about everyone who heard him was wowed by his eloquence. Since then, there have been many more remarkable Obama speeches -- his 2007 campaign announcement in Springfield, Ill., his rousing victory speech after the Iowa Caucuses, his moving speech on race in the midst of the Jeremiah Wright controversy, his tear-jerking election night speech on November 4th.

But none of them can compare to the new American president’s history making 20-minute oration after being inaugurated as the nation’s 44th U.S. Commander-in-Chief and the first African American to be elected to the highest office in the land. As great speeches go, the bar was incredibly high as some two million people jammed the National Mall in Washington and braved sub-freezing temperatures to hear him. Even one of Obama’s daughters was reported to have said about the speech; “Hmm. The first African American president. It better be good.”

Indeed, before Obama ever spoke a word, pundits were preparing  to measure his speech alongside such great inauguration addresses as Abraham Lincoln’s 1861 inauguration speech, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1933 speech and  John F. Kennedy’s in 1961. They waited to see if Obama’s speech would deliver a lasting line like FDR’s “…let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself…’ or JFK’s  “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

After taking the oath of office with his hand on the same bible Lincoln held in 1861, Obama stepped to the podium and rose to the task. Taking his theme from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, "A New Birth of Freedom," he spoke of choosing hope over fear and promised that America’s many difficult challenges WILL be met successfully. He spoke about  “a new era of responsibility,” and returning to the basic American values that have carried the nation through previous dark and difficult times. And he celebrated America’s “patchwork” diversity as its strength. 

“Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real.  They are serious and they are many.  They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.  But know this, America - they will be met,” he said.

“On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. 

“On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

In fact, he delivered just what most Americans wanted to hear -- a hopeful speech that brought Americans of all parties, races and religions together for 20 minutes  to feel good about being Americans.

As a favorite son of Illinois which has a history of producing great orators, Obama follows Lincoln, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan and others as a speaker who can take an audience from fear to hope, from tears to joy and back again. In one of my first interviews with him, I asked him how difficult it is dealing with the expectation that he will always deliver a great speech. “People have come to expect that I will bring them to tears every time,”he said. “I cannot.”

In fact, this may not have been his most moving speech. But, as of today, there is no one on the planet who doesn’t know who Barack Obama is.

Sylvester Monroe is Senior Editor for Ebony magazine.