I usually hate the sound “woo hoo.” It’s often so lame.
As in “Hey everybody, it’s Britney Spears!” “Woooo hooooo!”; “It’s XXXXX sports team” “Wooo hoooo!” ; “Beeeeeerrrr!!!!” “Wooooo hooooo”.
But tonight, that sound lifted my soul. As in “CNN is making a prediction… Barack Obama is going to be the next President of the United States.”
A collective “Woooo hoooo” rang across New York City. People shouted it from their apartment windows. The black transexual sex workers on our street shouted it. People driving by in cabs shouted it. And about 1,000,000 people gathered on an unusually warm autumn night in Chicago shouted it. “Woooooo hooooooo!!!” It sounded across America and resonated around the globe.
That sound has rung in a new chapter in the history of the world, and nothing less. The first African American President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. These pictures, even these pictures taken from television, to me, speak woooo hooooo words.
And after looking at those, let’s go back to New Hampshire all of those months ago.
“It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.
It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.
Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.”
United States of America President-elect Barack Obama.
