Obama calls on America to unite and serve

|PIC1|The inauguration on Tuesday of Barack Obama as America’s first black president is being hailed by many as the fulfilment of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech. But the incoming president is under no illusions as to the scale of the challenges he faces at home and abroad.

“It will take more than a month or a year, and it will likely take many,” he told a rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. “Along the way there will be setbacks and false starts.”

Despite the economic downturn and complicated military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the mood is upbeat.

Obama spent Monday, the national holiday to mark the anniversary of Dr King’s birth, painting a wall in a teenage homeless shelter in a deprived and largely black area of Washington DC.

Paying tribute to Dr King, he urged the nation to pull together and serve.

“Don’t underestimate the power for people to pull together and to accomplish amazing things,” he said.

He continued, “Tomorrow, we will come together as one people on the same Mall where Dr King’s dream echoes still. As we do, we recognise that here in America, our destinies are inextricably linked.

“We resolve that as we walk, we must walk together. And as we go forward in the work of renewing the promise of this nation, let’s remember King’s lesson – that our separate dreams are really one.”

Obama will deliver a 17-minute long inaugural address in which he is expected to urge the nation to ride out the storm together and rebuild America through unity and service.

“My job in this speech is just to remind people of the road we’ve travelled and the extraordinary odds that we’ve already overcome. We’ve been through tougher times before and we are going to get through these,” he said.

A host of events will be held across the UK to tie in with celebrations in the US marking Obama’s inauguration. Kelly Rowland and Mica Paris will attend a Yes, We Did inauguration party at the Intercontinental Hotel, Park Lane, in London, while live screenings will be held in Belfast, Liverpool and Leeds.

The inauguration ceremony will be attended by Obama's British stepmother, Kezia Obama, and other relatives from Kenya. Kezia Obama, from Bracknell, in Berkshire, was formerly married to Barack Obama's late Kenya-born father. She was quoted by The Telegraph as saying, "I thank God for this gift to the family and to Barack."