Last weekend marked yet another historic day in America’s ever-filling calendar of commemorations and public holidays. A calendar that, if one isn’t too careful, will leave no time for reflection and enjoyment of the here and now. The present seems ever more clouded by the celebrating of past achievements.
We’re constantly reminded that we live in the proud shadow of the achievements vested in the “Star-Spangled Banner.” And these were certainly out in force for Obama’s inauguration. But there’s no doubt, this was an event to celebrate. For America, but especially for the South. So why did everyone seem so reluctant?
Yes, the country’s first black president is sworn into office for his second term. But this didn’t have to be a political victory. It was one showing just how far America has come. Obama was sworn in over the Bible of a man who fought for black students to get on buses and go to college. I sat in my dorm, over a respectably elaborate breakfast of coffee and pastries, listening to that voice which has become so familiar to the world. That reassuring and affirmative voice which has spoken of so many ideals and now has four more years to put them into action.
But it is not just the voice of one man who many people here may not agree with. It is the voice of years of history and struggle which have been overcome. The power vested in this president, a power once relinquished to the rich plantation owners of the past, has overcome the harsh and violent attempts at muting it and consumed everything in its path. It has finally ended up in a position of great authority. And yet, where were the celebrations? Where was the music of freedom and achievement? And, more importantly – and perhaps realistically – where was the general recognition that this was not just a day like any other?
Has this great American principle of “progression” really reached the South? Perhaps I was too distracted by the Fox News team discussing whether Obama had been having a nap in the few off-stage minutes before taking his oath or whether he had indeed just been resting his eyes. But I’m not so sure that was a conversation stimulating enough to elude my vision from the – what should have been – reveling in one of the most important and resonating days in American history.
Yes, we were given a day off college. A prolonged chance to have a lie-in and possibly open a book. But the sun shone and the Quad was empty. Instead, it seems we are all still keeping ourselves to ourselves, allowing the healing notion of a “community” to pass us by and rendering ourselves to a life of individualism, fueled by social networks and iPhones. A world more isolated from its past than glorifying it. A thing America claims to be so good at.
For me, to be in the American South, in Alabama for this historic day, was more than I had ever anticipated. And yet my excitement and pride – for a country I don’t even call my own – were dulled by the fog of unawareness hanging in the air. It’s been 50 years since integration reached the University, “the stand in the schoolhouse door.” On Jan. 17, James Hood, the man who asked to be let in, died at age 70. That was 1963. His death should only have acted to signify the events of the present even more. But that it hasn’t, leads me to the question. Has the South really come that far? I have to ask myself now because I thought it had. But perhaps that was all just a dream – one the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. hoped would become a reality.
Lucy Cheseldine is an English international student studying English literature. Her column runs biweekly on Tuesdays.
