A New Day for America

This post is the fourth of a five-part series leading up to the inauguration.

For eight years the sun has been setting on America. Some people, especially those with lucrative hedgefunds and stocks that climbed through the heavens, may believe that we've been in trouble only since September. Others feel we have overcome all our social difficulties, and there's no more work to do. They have been so wrong. The sun was actually setting, in fits and starts but setting nonetheless, for eight long years.

No longer. America is inspired, uplifted, excited and psyched about tomorrow's inauguration of Barack Obama. We have been moved by his words, spirit and courage, by who he is, what he is doing and how he wishes to do it. And he has invited us into the process of bringing about the vision he has shared.

He stands the shoulders of a legacy: Frederick, Nat, Sojourner, Mary, Rosa, Martin, John, Emmitt, James, Malcom, Fannie Lou, Coretta, Thurgood, Barbara, and countless others.

He follows after Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Powell v. Alabama, Shelley v. Kraemer, Brown v. Board, and many other Supreme Court decisions .

After a history of blood and tears, he will stand before us: Barack. He is next in line to share a vision of hope and a deep-seated desire to improve our lives into the future. I feel honored he has invited us to stand with him, to walk with him to bring about the needed change we all seek.

John Legend said yesterday, "People who looked like [Obama] were slaves 140 years ago. It doesn't mean everything's better, but it is a huge thing." There has been progress, and yet there remain difficulties to overcome. Barack Obama has told us that "block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand" we will work through those challenges.

As he stood before Lincoln yesterday, Obama observed,"[W]hat gives me the greatest hope of all is not the stone and marble that surrounds us today, but what fills the spaces in between. It is you - Americans of every race and region and station who came here because you believe in what this country can be and because you want to help us get there."

At no time in the last eight years was I asked to join in partnership to help lift up America. But, now I have been invited -- almost as if I were going to one of tomorrow night's balls -- to join our new president in this great venture of bringing about change on many different levels.

I can't wait for tomorrow's history being made. It will be made on the backs and the events of those who came before. In Spirit, they, too, will be on the Mall with millions of others, waiting to share again in a vision of hope for all people.

For eight years -- no, for centuries -- we have lost sight of America, with no path to guide us out of darkness. Tomorrow will be 'our moment' to join Barack Hussein Obama, to move forward, to follow 'our better angels,' to roll up our sleeves, and to change America into the nation it's always been meant to be. Tomorrow the light of the sun will indeed shine on a new day.