11.05.08

Tuesday in the Park with Barack Obama

Posted in Uncategorized at 11:07 am by Leonard Kniffel

Posted on the ALA Council electronic list this morning by Councilor Marilyn Hinshaw of Oklahoma: “I am so grateful to the program planners who brought President-elect Obama to ALA in the recent past.  Whoever it was/whoever you are, thank you, thank you!  That program makes it possible for us who attended to say we were there witnessing a historic event in the making, at the beginning of a historic time for our nation.”

In the elevator on my way up to the office this morning, I ran into Deidre Ross, and before I’d even read Hinshaw’s posting, I thanked Ross for whatever she did as head of ALA Conference Services to bring Obama to the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago in 2005, when his campaign for the presidency was in its infancy.  Deidre isn’t often at the receiving end of praise for ALA conferences; rather, she is more often the recipient of complaints about what went wrong or what ought to have been done. I know, because I’ve sometimes been the messenger. But in 2005, Ross’s prescience led to one of the most rousing Opening General Session speeches I have ever heard. So library-specific, so tailor-made for librarians it was, that we were able to work with Obama to adapt it into the cover story for the August 2005 issue of American Libraries. I was also able to chat with Obama briefly in the Green Room before his speech, and the resultant interview was published in that same issue.

In his speech and in the article, Obama said, “More than a building that houses books and data, the library represents a window to a larger world, the place where we’ve always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward and the human story forward.” I remember having a hard time trying to cut the speech, so carefully crafted it was, and so we ended up running it pretty much in its entirety. “That’s what libraries are about. At the moment that we persuade a child, any child to cross that threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better,” Obama said. “It’s an enormous force for good.”

I was there last night in Grant Park,  “witnessing a historic event in the making,” as Marilyn Hinshaw puts it. I was one of the quarter million people who wanted to be there, on the spot where Obama would be, to see what America would do at this historic juncture. To the extent that my cell phone would work, I was also in touch with friends from Michigan, Maryland, and Texas wished they could be there, to cheer and to walk proudly down Michigan Avenue, mingling with thousands of smiling Chicagoans who seemed to understand the challenges ahead for the first African-American president of the United States of America. There was no rowdiness, no hostility. And there was no booing when John McCain gave his gracious concession speech. It was a proud moment.

This morning, I pulled all the August 2005 issues of American Libraries and set them aside. I’m going to frame one, and use the rest to help Deidre Ross and the Conference Services office do whatever we need to do to make sure Barack and Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and the other Chicagoans who helped the president-elect make history last night be sure they understand that we want them with us next summer when ALA gathers again in Chicago.

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