Present Tensed

The Inauguration

I’m watch­ing the Inau­gu­ra­tion at Emmett Till Math & Sci­ence Acad­emy with the 3rd and 4th graders. My group at the UofC works with the school on Tech­nol­ogy issues, and I’m happy to be invited to join their classes for this occasion.

Of the options I had, this feels the most right to me. These are the kids whose whole set of life-chances are most rad­i­cally going to be changed by this. While Emmett Till’s death is chrono­log­i­cally between “Brown v. The Board of Edu­ca­tion” and Rosa Parks, it occu­pies a very sig­nif­i­cant place in the gen­e­sis of the civil rights move­ment. It’s fit­ting, on this joy­ous occa­sion, to reflect on all the suf­fer­ing that’s been endured to earn our way to this point.

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