A historic day.

Today is Inauguration Day. Today is the day that Barack Obama became our 44th President of the United States (and the day that every single computer dictionary should update to show that typing 'Barack Obama' is NOT misspelled). Watching the ceremony today, Chief Justice Roberts messing up the Oath of Office, Obama giving such a speech that even my father was impressed, made me realize that this is an incredible moment in history that I was able to enable and bear witness to. But, it didn't quite strike me until tonight when I was watching a completely memorable movie that had one line that made me sit up and take notice.

TCM was running a marathon of Katharine Hepburn movies and, at 8:00 p.m., played "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" also starring Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier. This movie is already a classic for Tracy/Hepburn fans (the scene near the end where they look at each other is heartbreaking when you think about their relationship and Tracy's death so soon after shooting) and was groundbreaking for taking a hard look at interracial relationships (which, in 1967, the year this movie came out, the decision on Loving v. Virginia was made that ended restrictions on interracial marriage nationwide). But nothing about this movie struck me more than one simple line that Sidney Poitier says when speaking with Tracy's character about the challenges his kids are going to face (skip ahead to the :52 second mark):



If you didn't watch, when Tracy's character asks about how his daughter feels about their kids, he says, "She feels that every single one of our children will be President of the United States and they'll all have colorful administrations." 42 years later, we have a bi-racial president. Considering the fact that that's not as long ago as it could be, it makes me happy and proud that America has come so far. That's not saying that there's still a long way to go, but the fact that the same man who uttered that line is still alive to see Obama become president is absolutely mesmerizing.

I have no doubt that, while the road will be long as America repairs itself and its image, we'll be okay in the long run. With Obama as our president, I think we're off to a good start.