Pays tribute to Martin Luther King
Afp, Ap, Washington
Barack Obama’s team vowed to lose no time remaking the nation and the world as a blazing constellation of stars kicked off a three-day inauguration party for America’s first black president Sunday.
Once he takes office today, top aides said, Obama will immediately set in train economic revival, an end to the war in Iraq and a new dawn for US diplomacy.
Obama, in a tribute to civil rights hero Martin Luther King, said Monday his inauguration as America’s first black president would extend the work of “renewing the promise of this nation.”
“Tomorrow, we will come together as one people on the same mall where Dr King’s dream echoes still. As we do, we recognize that here in America, our destinies are inextricably linked,” he said in a statement.
“We resolve that as we walk, we must walk together. And as we go forward in the work of renewing the promise of this nation, let’s remember King’s lesson — that our separate dreams are really one.”
On the eve of his historic inauguration, Obama was Monday marking Martin Luther King Jr Day with a series of community events here under the banner of “Renew America Together: A Call to Service.”
U2, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder — whose songs were totemic anthems of Obama’s barnstorming rise to power — were headlining a concert for a sea of people standing in arctic cold in front of Washington’s Lincoln Memorial.
The tens of thousands attending were the advance guard of an inaugural crowd expected to number millions, as an unprecedented security operation began with police and army reservists taking up position across the US capital.
Hollywood royalty including Tom Hanks, Jamie Foxx and Denzel Washington were reciting historical passages interspersed with the all-star musical lineup, to mark the formal countdown to Tuesday’s momentous inauguration on Capitol Hill.
In advance of the afternoon party, Obama struck a more somber note as he joined vice president-elect Joseph Biden in laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery.
Dressed in black winter coats to guard against the freezing temperatures, Obama and Biden held their hands over their hearts as “Taps,” the US military’s haunting lament to the fallen, was played by a lone bugler.
Obama and his wife Michelle then climbed into the incoming president’s new armoured Cadillac with a blue license plate reading “44” — his numerical position as the newest, and first African-American, commander-in-chief.
The incoming First Family headed to a raucous reception at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, Washington’s oldest African-American church, and joined in a swaying, emotive recitation of hymns and Biblical passages.
“Let’s make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning,” the president-elect said as he trundled towards Washington and his place in history during a day-long train journey Saturday.
Along a railroad from Philadelphia to Washington, a route once traced by his hero, Civil War president Abraham Lincoln, Obama urged Americans to adopt a new “Declaration of Independence” from bigotry, small thinking and ideology.
Aides said those themes will figure large in Obama’s inaugural address after he is sworn in at noon Tuesday and takes his place alongside the pantheon of past presidents including Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Rahm Emanuel, the next White House chief of staff, told NBC the speech would declare an end to “the culture of anything goes” and demand a new era of responsibility from government, corporate boardrooms and the American people.
Incoming White House press secretary Robert Gibbs vied to temper sky-high expectations both worldwide and at home, as the United States grapples with its longest recession since World War II.
“We did not get into the situation overnight. The problems and the challenges that our country face didn’t happen all last week. It’s going to take us some time,” Gibbs said on “Fox News Sunday.”
But Gibbs and other senior aides said Obama would act rapidly to enact his economic revival plans via a mammoth stimulus package worth 825 billion dollars.
And on his first full day in office, the aides said, Obama will also convene his top military brass to map a way out of Iraq and recommit US troops against a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
“He will be meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to begin an orderly and responsible withdrawal from Iraq,” senior adviser David Axelrod told CNN.
President George W Bush’s successor will also “engage early and aggressively with diplomacy all over the world,” and hopes a newly declared ceasefire between Israel and Gaza militants will endure, Axelrod said.
After the tumultuous Bush presidency, Obama comes to office with the highest poll ratings since Ronald Reagan in 1981. The New York Times and CBS News said 79 percent of respondents to its poll were optimistic about the next four years.
Courtesy: thedailystar.net
