ABSTRACT
When on January 20, 2009, Beyoncé sang “At Last” at the inaugural Neighborhood Ball, with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama performing the opening dance, one could not ignore the song’s symbolic significance. Broadcast live by ABC, the performance connected the most popular African-American female pop star of the moment to the first-ever African-American president of the United States of America. Originally from the musical film Orchestra Wives (Archie Mayo, 1942) starring Glenn Miller and his Orchestra, “At Last” is best known in its 1961 R&B version by soul singer Etta James and as such has become part of the soundtrack of the 1960s civil rights movement. The song’s title evokes a connection to the spiritual words quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” Dressed in an elegant silver gown and looking more like a fairy-tale princess than a global pop star, Beyoncé serenades the slow-waltzing presidential couple, turning the performance into the most romantic moment of the inaugural festivities. However, the performance of “At Last” has a double function, not only highlighting the moment’s romantic character, but most of all celebrating that with the election of the first African-American president, more than forty-five years after King’s speech, the boundaries of race have finally been overcome. “At last,” Beyoncé sings, “I found a dream that I can speak to, a dream I can call my own.”
