Today marked the end of former President Donald Trump’s reign as Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. Kamala Harris made history as the first woman of Black and South Asian descent to take the Vice Presidential oath. Vice President Harris was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court.
A small audience witnessed this monumental event due to COVID restrictions; hundreds of American flags stood in place of spectators. The ceremony featured performances by Lady Gaga, J.Lo, Garth Brooks, and poet Amanda Gorman.
Gorman, a 23-year-old Harvard graduate and the youngest inaugural poet ever, stole the show as she recited “The Hill We Climb.” Her words, spoken on the steps of the Capitol where a far-right insurrection transpired just two weeks earlier, encapsulated the hope and fear that permeates the country.
“We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace and the norms and notions of what just is, isn’t always justice. And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it, somehow we do it, somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished,” Gorman read, “We, the successors of a country and a time, where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.”
Though the darkest days of the pandemic, racial injustice, and far-right uprisings may very well lie before us, we can rest assured that voices like Harris’ and Gorman’s will help to guide us through.
Top Image: YouTube screenshoot https://youtu.be/7HZadNUkYbo
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