Dispatch from the 2009 Inauguration

As I walk the crowded streets of Washington, D.C., I feel an energy I have never experienced before. Millions of strangers from all over the world coming together for a common hope—that this one great man can change their lives and the lives of those around them.

However, he cannot do this without us. Sometimes we forget it takes an army to aid a leader, and Barack Obama’s army is here today.

I will never forget the happiness in the faces I have seen here and the pride citizens of the world have for America’s first African-American president, from the deep alleys of New York City where vendors pawn Obama’s icon on T-shirts, to the streets of D.C. where we are crashing on couches to catch a glimpse of greatness.

But the greatness we crave does not lie in Obama alone. It is within all of us here today. The change we have been speaking of throughout President Obama’s candidacy is the energy surrounding me right now and our actions are the next step in making that change last.