Hi, my name is Kalila Simpson, I’m 12 years old, and go to the Bruce M. Whittier Middle School in Poland. I had the chance to go to this year’s Presidential Inauguration. This was a great experience by itself, but what made it really cool was the fact that this year was the first time ever in history that an African American became our great nation’s president.

The group that took me was called Congressional Youth Leadership Council. I got to be part of this program because when I was in fourth grade, Ms. Jan Roundy nominated me for a program called National Young Scholars Program. The organization looked at my grades and sent me a letter asking me if I’d like to go to New York for a week of leadership camp. It was also a great experience. I made new friends from all across the U.S., and the food was amazing. Two years later, they asked me to come back, but this time it was a trip to Washington D.C. While there we saw all the national monuments, the most amazing museums (and we spent the night at one of the museums), and we watched a movie on the biggest movie screen in the world. It was called IMAX. When I came home from the trip, my parents asked me if I would like to go to the Inauguration, and I said yes.

At the Inauguration, there were over two million people, which made it difficult to get everybody on the National Mall and even harder for everyone to be able to see. It took us about three hours to get from the Air and Space museum to the National Mall, which was only a block away. Some people even climbed trees and porta-potties to see our new president. I had to stay with my group, which made it a struggle to arrive on time. When we got to the Mall, we had to walk arm-in-arm to avoid losing anyone. I am pleased to say that I did see the Inauguration live, standing about two football fields from the Capitol Building.

You could tell this was a really important moment in American history, but I could see that it was especially meaningful for African Americans. It seemed like two of every three people present were African American. During Barack Obama’s speech, about every five seconds the ground would start shaking with the roaring of the crowd cheering. The atmosphere felt like a huge celebration. I did feel bad for President George W. Bush, because every time someone made a reference to him, such as thanking him or even saying his name the ground would start shaking again, only this time it was with booing.

I am now happy to say that I was part of American history and will always remember that I was there to see our first African American president, Barack Obama, get sworn in.