WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Library of Congress is soliciting audio and video recordings of sermons that will be preached next week celebrating the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.
The library’s American Folklife Center is asking churches, synagogues, mosques and others for copies of sermons or passionate speeches that focus on the significance of Obama’s inauguration as the nation’s first black president.
The American Folklife Center’s David Taylor says that way, “If a historian asks ‘How did Americans react to Obama’s inauguration?’ we’ll have immediate responses to this powerful event.”
The audio and video clips will become part of a Library of Congress collection that includes interviews after Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.