"They [President and First Lady Obama] make me want to be brighter" - Beyonce
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un_YHXoLwAs]
"Our minds are no less inventive, our good and services no less needed our capacity remains undiminished" echoed throughout Elmont Memorial High School. Approximately twenty students, supported by an enthusiastic administration, worked for more than two weeks to transform the schools audio-video and IT infrastructure into a distributed reviewing platform for their nearly two thousand fellow students of Elmont High.
A mixture of tears, applause, and pride permeated the school when President Obama said, "this is the meaning of our liberty and our creed -- why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath." In one short sentence, he affirmed the dark past of slavery, centuries of struggle toward civil rights, and a glimpse at redemption.
Elmonts students hail from the Diaspora. "To all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more." The students responded as one, he spoke to me said an 11th grader, I have friends and family back home and they need to know that our President wants to work [constructively] with everyone.
President Obama using scripture challenged us to set aside childish things. "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply."
Read Three Village Times Article
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