When day comes, we ask ourselves:
Where can we find light
In this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.

We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
And the norms and notions of what “just is”
Isn’t always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow, we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
A nation that isn’t broken, but simply
unfinished.

We, the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl,
Descended from slaves and raised by a
single mother,
Can dream of becoming president,
Only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished,
far from pristine.
But that doesn’t mean we are striving to
form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with
purpose,

To compose a country committed
To all cultures, colors, characters,
And conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not
To what stands between us,
But what stands before us.
We close the divide,
Because we know to put
Our future first, we must first
Put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms
So we can reach out our arms to one
another.
We seek harm to none, and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew,
That even as we hurt, we hoped,
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together.
Victorious,
Not because we will never again know
defeat,
But because we will never again sow
division.

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our
nation rather than share it,
Would destroy our country if it meant
delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically
delayed,
It can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith, we trust.
For while we have our eyes on the future,
History has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption.
We feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
Of such a terrifying hour.
But within it we’ve found the power
To author a new chapter,
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.

So while once we asked: How could we
possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert: How could catastrophe
possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was,
But move to what shall be:
A country that is bruised but whole,
Benevolent but bold,
Fierce and free.

We will not be turned around,
Or interrupted by intimidation,
Because we know our inaction and inertia
Will be the inheritance of the next
generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might, and might
with right,
Then love becomes our legacy,
And change, our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better
than the one we were left.
With every breath from my bronze-
pounded chest,
We will raise this wounded world into
a wondrous one.

We will rise from the gold-limned hills
of the West!
We will rise from the windswept
Northeast, where our forefathers first
realized revolution!
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities
of the Midwestern states!
We will rise from the sunbaked South!

We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover,
In every known nook of our nation,
In every corner called our country,
Our people, diverse and dutiful.
We’ll emerge, battered and beautiful.