Citizens speak out about incoming president

STAFFORD — On Nov. 4, the citizens of the United States of America voted Barack Obama to be their next president.

Obama will not just be the first Democratic president Virginia has voted for in 44 years. Born in Hawaii, he will be the first United States president born outside the contiguous United States.

He will be the fifth youngest president.

He will be the first to have Illinois as his primary political base since President Lincoln.

President-elect Obama is also the first president-elect of African-American ancestry. His father hailed from Nyanza Province, Kenya, and his mother, a white woman, was from Witchita, Kan.

Obama’s parents met in 1960 while both were attending school at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Barack Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham were married for three years before divorcing in 1964. His mother subsequently remarried, to Lolo Soetoro, and moved the family to Indonesia. Obama, Jr., returned to Hawaii in 1971 and lived with his maternal grandparents until graduation from high school.

After high school, he graduated from Columbia University, worked for a couple of companies in New York, moved on to work with community-rights organizations and later graduated from Harvard Law School. He was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review while there, overseeing 80 editors.

Obama then became a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, was elected to the Illinois State Senate for three consecutive terms, and was then elected to the United States Senate.

He announced his candidacy for presidency on Feb. 10, 2007, and will be sworn in as President of the United States of America on Jan. 21, 2009.

Falmouth resident and campaign volunteer Katherine Ingleson said recently, with tears in her eyes: “It is an honor to have been able to help in this election. I remember watching Martin Luther King, Jr., and it just feels like now is the time. Change is coming — and his dream is being fulfilled.”

Ingleson said she was delighted that her daughters could see a black man in the White House, as one of the most powerful people on earth.

Lashawna Johnson, of Norfolk, said that “race shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Yes, this election was awesome in that there would have been either a woman or a black man on the executive branch, but people should be voting on the issues, not on whether this or that candidate looks like I do,” she said.

Alicia Rodgers, of North Stafford, reflected on the historical significance that Obama’s election to the presidency brought.

“I’d have to say that, yes, I am very happy that a black man is our president-elect. These are very historical, momentous times.”

Widewater resident Susan Brown said that she remembers segregated schools, and to have been gifted to see the day when a black man gets elected by this nation is “wonderful — truly amazing.”

“It shows the possibilities are open no matter where you come from,” she said.

Megan is a contributing writer for the Stafford County Sun.