Stories News Digest In Context All

U.S. presidential inauguration

Dal’s black student community excited for inauguration

Students share their thoughts on Obama, the inauguration and the future

“I bought this (Obama T-shirt) for $10 in Toronto. I can’t find them anywhere here! I’m excited to wear it,” says Shawna Veadziya, a first-year science student at Dalhousie.

Even in Halifax, more than 1,800 kilometres away from Washington D.C., the atmosphere is charged. Barack Obama will be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States today, and for Dal’s black student community, this historic event strikes a strong chord.

“I’m just proud because as a whole, any minority, not just black people, have struggled a lot in the last couple of centuries. It’s nice to know that the world has come so far to be able to look past those things, to look past colour and come together and want to make a positive change,” Veadziya says as she dries her eyes.

A long road

“My father is from Africa and he struggled so hard to come here and make a better life for me…In the states he was one of the first black people to (attend a previously white) university. He marched with Martin Luther King. It makes me proud to be able to see a change before I die,” she says.

“You just grow up knowing that it was such a struggle you know? That’s why I’m here. That’s why I go to school, because for my dad to have gone through so much just to be educated and to be able to provide for my sister and me. I have to take opportunity of the gift that we’re given now. I can go to school. I can get good grades because of my work and not be graded because of the colour of my skin, which is a struggle my dad went through in university. So, we have to take these opporunities. We can’t let them pass us by.”

Veadziya’s father is 73 and lives in British Columbia. She says she is happy he gets to see this special day too.

“It means hope”

Crystal John, an undergrad working toward a social work degree, is attending the Obama Inauguration Party at Dal’s campus bar, the Grawood, this afternoon. She says she is still left speechless some days that Obama “did it.”

“I guess it… oh my, it means hope for my children. My eight- and 10-year olds, I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime. It means hope.”

“It’s a milestone for sure,” says second-year law student Priucebu Ojiegbe. “I’m overjoyed, happy. I’m happy but a little bit nervous because we’re entering an unknown. I don’t mean about his abilities… as far as that, I think that there are a lot of reasons to be happy.”

As the first African-American person is sworn-in as the leader of America, the world will watch as history is made.

“Hopefully this change will help everybody come together and be able to love each other for the people we are and not the colour of our skin. We have so much potential. It’s so overwhelming,” says Veadziya.

“You can’t put it into words sometimes.”