Welcome to

Florida A&M University students are celebrating the new President tonight. Barack Obama campaigned at the historically black school and the school’s band was one of only two Florida bands to perform in the inaugural parade. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, it is a day many students never thought they would see in their lifetimes.

Hear it Here: FAMU Celebrates 44th President

Students streamed into FAMU’s Lee Hall with excitement in their eyes and on their faces.

“I’ve never actually watched the inauguration before,” FAMU student Brandon Swanigan said. “It’s kind of exciting.”

Professors canceled some classes, and the University set up multiple sites to watch the inauguration.

The crowd cheered and chanted the moment the President-elect appeared on the big screen.

Korri McMane was on the phone and in tears as Barack Obama took office.

“Just hearing he’s president. It’s just not real,” McMane said. “I’m just thinking of my granddad right now, he was born in 1922 and that he can actually sit here and watch this like I’m watching this is unbelievable.”

Usually this campus is bustling all throughout the day, but right now our new president is still speaking and this campus is virtually a ghost town.

15 Blocks away and 50 years ago, FAMU students weren’t allowed to eat at Tallahassee lunch counters. And while these students didn’t feel the height of discrimination, their parents and grandparents did, making the day all the more emotional.

“It’s a really big moment for everybody,” one student said.

“It’s just a testament of what can happen in America if you try hard,” another student Randy Grice said.

And the theme of the campaign, hope and change, never meant so much to so many.