Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech.

Rosa sat so Martin could walk

Martin walked so Obama could run

Obama ran so our children can fly

–Attributed to Khari Mosley, reportedly a 19-year-old single mother in the U.S.. I’m not sure if the attribution is correct but it matters little given its beautiful interpretation of a country’s very real cultural history. Whatever the case, the phrase is being repeated over and over again in magazines, blogs, on posters and billboards across the nation. Such was the case when I saw it this week in the window of a clothing store in Boston, Massachusetts. My father, an 81-year-old Army veteran and Great Depression survivor who was with me, teared up upon seeing the message. Only the greatest of cynics could not be at least somewhat uplifted by the message.

Tuesday’s inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States was a remarkably powerful testament to the incredible capacity for renewal of a people and nation determined to overcome prejudice and other petty limitations of the human spirit. It was, among other things, an incredible testament to our human capacity for growth, for faith, for trust, for hope and, yes, for greatness.

Argentina’s potential for greatness is limited only by the cynicism of its politicians and the mutually destructive distrust among its citizenry.

The vast majority of my Argentine family members and friends thought Obama’s inauguration would never happen. But it did. May this remind us all that almost anything is possible when we set aside our egos and prejudices to come together as one people to achieve a common goal and meet a higher purpose.

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