“With hope, good morning”

I woke up so happy, exhilarated and even emotional today. In a few hours, I’m about to watch a Black woman of mixed heritage, the daughter of immigrants be inaugurated as Vice President of my nation, hopefully president one day. I wish my dad were alive to see this. He’d be so excited, just like he was when we watched a Black man of mixed heritage with an African name become president.

Today moves my soul for every little brown-skinned girl and women like me who throughout life have dreamed big, but in the back of our minds were always plagued with thoughts of “they’ll never let a woman do that” or “they’ll never let a Black person do that.” I’m so excited today. Kamala Harris is the epitome of what happens when we don’t let those voices in the back of our minds win. When we persevere, put in the work and prove the whole world wrong.

As a Black woman in America, she is where we were never ever meant to be. We were meant to be baby-making servant machines with no rights to anything. Today, we are Vice President of this same nation whose forefathers penned an entire Constitution that left us out. What an amazing day this is.

It makes me so proud to watch Kamala Harris. She is a proud member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, a Black sorority. She attended Howard University, an HBCU. She wears Converse, just like I did in high school. She laughs out loud. She laughs at herself often. She loves humor. She marshals gay pride parades and proudly waves the Pride flag. She is someone I can’t help but look up to. This is a moment in our nation’s history I can’t help but be stirred by. I am sure I will never forget today.

As Maya Angelou so eloquently stated when she became the first Black poet to ever recite at a presidential inauguration in 1993 at that of President Bill Clinton:

Here, on the pulse of this new day

You may have the grace to look up and out

And into your sister’s eyes, and into

Your brother’s face, your country

And say simply

Very simply

With hope —

Good morning