Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Obama sworn in as America's first black president - 1


Barack Obama, left, joined by his wife Michelle, takes the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts to become the 44th president of the United States at the U.S. Capitol in Washington Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009.



Barack Obama became America's first black president in a singular moment of history and proclaimed the nation had chosen "hope over fear" in the face of economic gloom and foreign wars.

"Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America," the new president told a nation caught in the worst economic blight since the 1930s Great Depression.

Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and white American mother, laid his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used at his inauguration in 1861 to take the oath of office.

He quickly broke with departing president George W. Bush's policies on the war on terrorism and the economy, and told the rest of the world America was "ready to lead once more" in an 18-minute inaugural address .

Obama's inauguration, on the steps of the US Capitol which was partially built with slave labor, broke the highest racial barrier in the United States, and may go a long way to consummating civil rights icon Martin Luther King's dream of racial unity.

http://news.my.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=2185324

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