History through my students' eyes

As I walked through Harlem on the way to school this morning, up Amsterdam and past the Apollo theater, the world felt different. Only a few hours before, this same path that I was walking was filled with jubilant chanting, marching, and ecstatic celebration.

My students described their experience living in Harlem during this historic event:

All of a sudden people just started banging pots and pans up and down the halls of my building chanting OBAMA! OBAMA

It was so crazy in my building. People were banging pans together and even shooting guns into the air to celebrate

The streets were so loud I couldn't sleep!

I looked out my window and one guy was yelling OBAMA! He saw me and said, "Hey girl why aren't you celebrating?!" So I started yelling "OBAMA" out my window too.

My dad just kept on hugging me, screaming and crying, and yelling, "I can't believe it!"

My classroom broke out into chants and cheers as we watched Obama's speech today. "It's Obama's day!" said my AP to my students. "You will remember this day and tell your children and your children's children about this day."

When talking about what the are feeling about this very moment:

I was just thinking that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves in the country and about how now we have our very first African American president. A lot has changed.

Why do people keep saying he's black? He's not just black he's also white because his mom's white. So why is everyone calling him just black?

I'm sorry but slavery, that's trash. What did slaves do to anybody except be forced to live here and work without any rights?

Now that we have our first African-American president, it makes me think that I can be the first Dominican president.

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