Day 11: The World was Watching…

We awoke at 3am this morning to get on the first metro train into the city. On the way, the Arlington SWAT team was loading up and one of the officers said to me, “You guys are choosing to do this?” Crazily enough, yes.

The gates at Courthouse station just opened as we got there, and already there were people waiting. The whole city was on lock. It definitely wasn’t hard to get there, all we had to was follow the thousands of other people.

We established a space at approximately 4:30am. The temperature was 18 degrees. By 5:30am Jenna, Jessica and James bailed. It was too cold and too claustrophobic. Only me and Crystal left. My feet were getting frostbite.

By 7:30am, for some reason, the crowd eased up. I danced around for about 2-3 hours just to stay alive.

It’s hard to fathom the motivation for over a million people to knowingly go into an extremely uncomfortable situation (fighting with people to get a spot where neither one of you will actually see what’s going on) to essentially see one man speak for about 15 minutes.

But this was one of the most significant events in modern human history and almost certainly the most significant for my generation.

Today, Barack Obama became the first African American President, 46 years after Martin Luther King’s dream. One sign in the crowd read, “The future is watching.”

In so many ways, President Obama has renewed the American dream and has personified the millennial generation’s hopes, dreams and aspirations. I firmly believe that now is a turning point for our generation. We have the knowledge, opportunity and technology to change the world for the better. This is a new era.

And we started by cleaning up the mall.

This has been one of the most enthralling experiences of my life, and I am so grateful that Mount Olive College has given me and my fellow students this opportunity to represent my school and witness history. Thank you to Dr. Jordan, Mrs. Jennifer Merritt, Mrs. Rhonda Jessup, Dustin Keipper, Dr. Debra Houston and everybody that helped make this possible for us. It was incredible.