inauguration

By Eden Hubert
Dover Elementary School, Grade 6

So many marches.
Such a long time.
Slaving away in the hot sun,
song after song,
prayer after prayer,
day after day.
The thought of freedom is the only thing keeping them working all day long in the hot sun.
And then, to see a black man elected president of the USA,
It's unbelievable.
A man who will bring change and history to America.
He has a long road ahead of him,
But America is ready for Barack Obama.

I am the one who gazes so deeply into the large screen in the cafeteria. I smile when they trip over words and I applause when needed. My heart beats rapidly seconds before U.S. history. Everyone around me doesn’t care and rolls their eyes, but I am the one who is filled with enthusiasm. As history hits and the crowd is screaming, clapping, and so joyful, I can feel the tears in my eyes, longing to be there in front of them. I imagine the day when I will be there to see U.S. history being made again. Will it ever be this amazing?

I.
Me

11:00 AM

I am one of the lucky ones.
As I walk down the hall, my footsteps echo over the emptiness,
and through every window and door
I can see my peers concentrating on exams.

I have Driver's Ed this block and we took our exam last week.
So I am one of the lucky ones, who is able to focus on more important things
than square roots
and metaphors
names, dates, theories and equations, all of which mean little to me
or to any of us.

I am one of the lucky ones who can focus on what is important
to me.

I show my pass to the hall monitoring teacher, and she waves me through with a finger to her lips and a cock of her head, warning me to be quiet as I make my way down the hall. What noise am I going to make? What could I possibly do right now, by myself, while everyone else is working, that would cause a disturbance? And why would I want to? Why would I want to blow this? I am one of the lucky ones.

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.

We’re all watching, listening; I’m driving home from midterms and his voice is on the radio and there is barely a car on the road. Everyone is at home, watching history. Obama's voice crackles through the car speakers.

Obamas Celebrate Martin Luther King Holiday With Service (Click "read more" to see video.)

NYTIMES -- WASHINGTON — Barack Obama rolled up his sleeves on Monday and helped out at a homeless center, devoting much of his last full day as president-elect to paying tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. and to the spirit of volunteerism and public service he said Mr. King represented.

Obama Delivers Address to Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial
I want to thank all the speakers and performers for reminding us, through song and through words, just what it is that we love about America. And I want to thank all of you for braving the cold and the crowds and traveling in some cases thousands of miles to join us here today. Welcome to Washington, and welcome to this celebration of American renewal. Text and video below -- click "read more"

Experts Critique Obama The Writer

Click the link to hear an All Things Considered piece on Obama's writing. Summary: President-elect Barack Obama has been many things: lawyer, community organizer, politician — and writer. A panel of literary pundits, including Azar Nafisi, Rick Moody and Edwidge Danticat, assess his memoir Dreams from My Father and tell us what they think his writerly-ways might portend for his term in the Oval Office.

This is the location for material about the Obama Transition Team and even a few links to historical pieces about the inauguration of American presidents.

change.gov, the Transition Team site. See the incredible pace of work before Obama became president.

Obama's Transition Team YouTube video feed

News Sources for Coverage -- We will update this as we find great sites.
change.gov, the Transition Team site. See the incredible pace of work before Obama became president.

NY TIMES Politics Page
NY TIMES Live Blog of Inauguration Day BBC
politico.com
realclearpolitics.com
huffingtonpost.com
slate.com

Live Video & Audio Feeds
National Public Radio
msnbc.com (This site includes cool live transcript service.)
CNN Live feeds This requires a Flash Player update but there are some great feeds, including lived video and audio (no talking heads!)
Official Inauguration Site
CBS news

This is a podcast of the This American Life show that appeared over the weekend on the Inauguration. It's fabulous. -- gg

372: The Inauguration Show

On the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration, we sent reporters out all over the country to talk to people about how they're feeling about this new president. Do they believe things will change? Do they think there'll be changes in their own lives? From dozens of hours of interviews, at a Marine Corps base and a button factory, at a New Orleans bar and a Florida town that used to be a stronghold for the Ku Klux Klan, we hear opinions about what's going to happen in America after the ceremony on January 20th, 2009.

A few archival videos of Inaugurations of past presidents.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy's speech, 1961
Part 1

Part 2

Ronald Reagan, 1981
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

By Lydia Garland
Dummerston Middle School, Grade 8

Dawn of Change?

The dawn of a new day.
The swearing in
Of our 44th
President.

President Barack Obama
Will do a good job,
He will lead our
Country out of
This hole,

Obama Speeches

Below are embedded videos of some of Barrack Obama's more memorable speeches and, at the bottom, a few of the better Obama songs.

Thought this was amusing: Andy Borowitz wrote this on huffingtonpost.com To see and comment yourself on Obama's election speech, click here.

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.

Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.

But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.

Barack Obama delivers his Victory Speech on Election Day, 2008, at Grant Park in Chicago. Video below.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.