At Last!!

How appropriate was it that President Obama and his wife danced to the Etta James classic, “At Last,” on inauguration night? I alone can think of so many at lasts that culminated in that dance, on that hour, for so many, on so many levels, that so very historic night.

At last Mr. Obama was no longer President in waiting! At last Mr. Bush was out! At last there was a new direction, with the world watching, feeling inspired in this at last’s wake! At last the attempt to heal a nation broken by years of divisive policies could begin! At last Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream had been realized, he had been to the mountaintop and knew this day would come! At last African Americans, no, make that persons of African descent worldwide, could hold our heads high, our young people could respectfully pull their pants up, realizing that we are no longer a minority, one of us is the leader of the free world…At last!! At last the inescapable contribution of the slaves on whose backs the new world was built, had not toiled in vain; the tears of mothers whose children had been lynched had been vindicated; at last the indignities of the Jim Crow era were satiated and we could ride anywhere in the bus, design the bus, fix the bus or drive the bus, BMWs or walk, if we pleased (shout out to AKH)…At last, At last, AT LAST.

At last in this symbolic act, children who once saw themselves limited in the reach of their potential realized that they actually could be exactly what they wanted to be, at last their potential was really limitless. So here we sit ushering the dawn of a new era of inclusiveness awestruck. For those of us who thought we would never see it our lifetime, pinch yourselves, you are not dreaming; that night, the spirits of our predecessors (TMWR) danced right up there with the first couple. AT LAST, AL FIN, ENFIN… Jesus Wept. John 11:35. Selah.