By Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Today correspondent

Story Published: Jan 30, 2009

Newly named President Barack Obama shared a moment with his adoptive Crow parents, Mary and Hartford Black Eagle. The Black Eagles are proud of their adoptive son and his run to become the 44th President of the United States

HELENA, Mont. – While the world celebrated as an African American assumed the highest office in the United States, Barack Obama was accompanied by his adopted parents, brother and clan members of the Apsaálooke, or the Crow Nation.

Twenty-four Crow members traveled from Montana to Washington D.C., hauling horse trailers and traditional regalia to participate in the inaugural parade Jan. 20, after Obama became the first U.S. president to belong to an Indian tribe.

Last May, then-presidential candidate Obama paid a campaign visit to Crow Agency, arguably the first stop at an Indian reservation by any presidential candidate since Robert F. Kennedy’s visit in 1968 to Pine Ridge, S.D.

Before the rally Mary and Hartford Black Eagle formally adopted Obama into the Crow Nation, conferring an honorary tribal membership. They gave him a family name, Barack Black Eagle, and a Crow name, Awe Kooda Bilaxpak Kuuxshish, which translates as “one who helps people throughout the land.”

“I like my new name,” said Obama then. “That is a good name,” he told the cheering crowd of nearly 5,000 people.

“It’s something out of this world to have a son in the White House,” said Mary Hartford just before Inauguration Day. “After the adoption, when I asked Obama would he remember me after becoming the president, he replied, ‘You will be right there with me, mom.’

“Obama lost his parents much earlier; I am honored to be his mother. In July, he introduced me to his wife and daughters. My husband gave a Crow name to Michelle: ‘Arrowhead Woman.’”

Hartford Black Eagle reflected on the historic inauguration.

“It’s a moment of pride not just for our family but for all Native Americans,” he said.

Obama’s adoptive brother Cedric Black Eagle commented on the turn of events since May.

“When he visited us, we did not know he would go on to become the president,” he said. “My family adopted him because he shared concerns of Native Americans.”

Valerie Taliman of the Indian Law Resource Center, a nonprofit law and indigenous rights advocacy organization, said the adoption was not symbolic.

“It carried immense spiritual and social connotations and constituted permanent familial and emotional bond between Obama and the Black Eagle family,” said Taliman, a member of the Navajo nation.

American Indian tribes have huge expectations for the new president. Obama often refers to “First Americans” and has acknowledged that the federal government “has ignored their needs and has not been honest to them.” He told the Crow gathering that his “government would ensure [First Americans] have a voice in the White House.”

“We hope the president fulfills his electoral promises and changes discriminatory laws against the natives,” said a beaming Cedric Black Eagle as fellow tribal members made their way to Washington for the inauguration.

“Native Americans have been suppressed by the federal government for over a hundred years,” noted Taliman. “Jan. 20 was a historic moment for America; and for the world.”