WASHINGTON, DC – Less than 15 minutes into his presidency, President Barack Obama uttered the words “we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.”
Retired schoolteacher Judy Brooks, 64, of Amherst, Mass., yelled out a “Yes!”
“He’s going to be the man to change our future,” Brooks later told Diverse.
In some ways, Obama already had. Brooks and her husband, Barry Brooks, 67, a retired school guidance counselor, had one of their first dates on Aug. 28, 1963, at the other end of the National Mall at the Lincoln Memorial. There, they listened to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“We saw him say the words, ‘I have a dream,’’’ said Brooks, who Tuesday, more than 45 years later, sat with cane in hand at the opposite end of the Mall near the U.S. Capitol to witness the inauguration of the nation’s first Black president. “We now have overcome.”
Education and civil rights advocates from across the country were out in force for the nation’s largest inauguration in history. Presidents of historically Black colleges came, as did the president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. Schoolteachers and professors made their way to the event to celebrate the man who was once one of them – as a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. And, of course, college students from every corner of the country came to witness the historic occasion firsthand.
Nameka Bates and Will Patterson, the director and associate director, respectively, of the African-American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, brought 38 students for the weekend as part of the center’s trips to enhance their education. The group joined thousands of others in the opening ceremonies on Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial and helped serve food and hand out clothing to Washington, D.C.’s needy as part of a national day of service on Monday.
