The million little details of President Barack Obama's visit to Central New York -- the route of his motorcade, the pols who will get to shake his hand, where he will spend the night -- are noisy distractions from the history he is about to make here.
Obama is not just a sitting president; he is the nation's first African-American president. That has particular resonance in Syracuse, the city Daniel Webster, in 1851, branded "that laboratory of abolitionism, libel and treason.''
As if to prove Webster right, later that year a determined band of abolitionists rescued a barrel maker named Jerry who had been arrested in Syracuse under the Fugitive Slave Act. The episode is celebrated by a statue in our city's main square, near a larger monument to the Onondaga County soldiers who later fought and died to preserve the Union and end slavery.
Obama, a student of history, must know Syracuse and the nearby communities of Peterboro and Auburn were stations on the Underground Railroad. Abolitionist sentiment was stoked by such towering historical figures as Jermain Loguen, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Gerrit Smith, William Seward and Harriet Tubman.
Auburn's Seward and Tubman connections may prove irresistible to a president who knows the value of symbolism. On the eve of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s march on Washington, Obama is said to be considering a stop at the Tubman house, where the "Moses of her People'' lived out her days.
That would be fitting. When he became president, Obama walked through the doors they opened.
A president makes history just by his presence. The last time we got an up-close look at the commander-in-chief was in 2000, when Bill Clinton visited the State Fair. We don't even get to glimpse presidential wanna-bes. Last year, Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney campaigned relentlessly in the battleground states but skipped over blue-state New York.
This is the president's first time in Central New York. On the bus from Buffalo to Syracuse to Auburn, he'll see the diversity of our landscape, urban to rural. If he ventures out of his security bubble, he'll meet hard-working, plain-talking people - many of whom disagree with his politics and policies.
This is a great moment for Syracuse and the region. The eyes of the nation will be upon us. Let's celebrate Obama's visit and recognize its place in our local history.