The Nation commemorates an historic inauguration

January 20, 2009

(Illustration/John Mavroudis for The Nation)

Throughout this extraordinary election, it often seemed as if history itself were campaigning alongside Barack Obama. The Nation notes the occasion in An Inauguration for the Ages

The spirits of the civil rights movement–and movements for social justice everywhere–will be with Obama on this historic Inauguration Day. Artist John Mavroudis imagines the occasion..

It was on August 24, 2008, on the forty-fifth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, that Obama accepted the Democratic party’s nomination, becoming the first black American to be a major party’s presidential candidate.

And on January 20, 2009–one day after Martin Luther King Day–Obama will be sworn in as the first black president of the United States. No doubt the spirits of the civil rights movement, and of movements for racial justice everywhere, will be with him then.

Artist John Mavroudis’s cover illustration for this week’s print edition of The Nation imagines this inauguration–one witnessed not in flesh and blood, but in the bonds of justice and peace. To identify the historical figures, match the list of names below with the diagram at right.