At Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, Students Cheer New President

As Barack Obama became the country’s first African-American president, Brooklyn Campus graduate student Miles Mims recalled the experience of Jim Crow discrimination. Photos: David Gardiner Garcia

Brooklyn, N.Y. – A graduate student with memories of racial segregation under Jim Crow laws was among joyful crowds on Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, gathered to witness what many hailed as history in the making: Barack Obama being sworn in as president of the United States.

Before rows of giant television screens in the Louise B'69 and Leonard Riggio Cyber Café, some students embraced while others, like 55-year-old Miles Mims, watched somberly as the country’s first African-American president took office.

"I grew up at the end of the Jim Crow era," said Mims, a student in the Brooklyn Campus master’s program in public administration. "My mother was from the South, and when I visited her, as soon as we got to Maryland, I had to sit at the back of the bus. I never thought we’d have an African-American president in my lifetime."

Voicing amazement as she watched from a nearby table, 21-year-old nursing student Sarah Louis exclaimed, "This is the moment everyone is waiting for. An African American being the president gives us hope." Born in Haiti and now a U.S. citizen, she added, "It sends the message to our kids that being president can happen to anyone!"

In a wheelchair on the other side of the Café, 36-year-old Joubert Mulor sat with several friends. "He’s going to do something for people, such as those who’ve lost houses," said Mulor, a native of Haiti who is studying economics.

Intently watching the televised inauguration of a new president, juniors Artem Vasilenko, 25, and Gomattie Seecoomar, 23, joined hundreds at gatherings on the Brooklyn Campus.

Elsa Bowen, 47, a sophomore from Grenada, noted that President Obama “won’t please everyone,” but she predicts that he’ll be a successful president in spite of the “potholes” that lie ahead.

While hundreds of Long Island University students viewed Tuesday’s ceremony on televisions throughout the Brooklyn Campus, scores more joined the throngs in Washington, D.C. Two busloads of students left the Campus at 5:30 a.m. on Inauguration Day, returning from the capital late that night. While most other students slept on the bus heading home, 21-year-old senior Janie Cloud, a political science major from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., explained, "I went to the inauguration because I wanted to be a part of a huge moment in history."

At the Brooklyn Campus, rows of television screens showed President Barack Obama deliver his January 20 Inaugural Address.

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Posted: January 21, 2009