In the summer of 1960, when I was 10, my parents, my brother Johnny, and I drove across country. Part of our trip took us through the still-segregated South. I will never forget the horror I felt as I saw the "Whites Only" signs on restaurants and drinking fountains, the bathrooms labeled "Men," "Women," and "Colored." The harshness of such visible, tangible inequality, bigotry, and hatred marked my view of the world from that time on. How could such a broken world ever be fixed? How could we ever get past such an immense divide between peoples sharing a common land?

Tonight, I am so moved by the momentous occasion in US history as we celebrate the election of Barack Obama as our 44th president. My hope for a healed nation no longer seems frail and naively optimistic. It seems strong and certain. How good it will be to wake up tomorrow in a new America!