Michael Lorne, attorney-at-law

He described Obama's speech as "absolutely brilliant". Said he: "What we saw was poetry and oratory at its magnificent best.

"When I saw him speaking, it brings to mind, certainly, the oratory of the great Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr, Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X.

Lorne likened the event to: "The release of Nelson Mandela, the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the return of His Imperial Majesty (Haile Selassie I) to Ethiopia when the Italians were defeated.

Dickie Crawford, UWI lecturer

Today (Tuesday) has seen the remaking of the United States of America.

Barack Obama's inauguration and his speech are, to my mind, the beginning of the 21st century for humanity. We heard a president who understood and spoke from his heart, but spoke brilliantly and scientifically as a world leader and painted a picture of a world of peace and prosperity.

Msgr Richard Albert, Roman Catholic priest

I think it is a new beginning for the United States. I think it is a moment in which the United States can regain its values as a people.

Lambert Brown, Political commentator and trade unionist

For Barack Obama, as he said, it is the burden of the world upon his shoulders and that, for me, is what the inauguration speech said. We have challenges, we are going to face them, we are going to win.

I watched from the point of view of a Jamaican and asked myself, how can we learn lessons from them so that our burdens can be gently lifted from our shoulders, but at a greater pace than they are being done now?

Kay Osborne, general manager, TVJ

Triumph, renewal and hope - that is what it symbolically meant to me. Triumph of good over 400 years of evil, renewal from generational failures and in the face of sceptics who could not understand that the ground could shift, hope of new beginnings that are propelled by mankind's eternal drive for freedom.