Just to Be There (Inauguration '09)

So, did you see me? I was the one with the white hat, not too far from the Washington Monument, just northeast of the corner of 14th and Independence. You know, near that Tourmobile kiosk just on the edge of the National Mall. No? But I kept waving at the CNN camera man...

I’m not really a big crowds person. I can’t imagine traveling to DC just for an inauguration, even this historic one. But when I realized that my January fellowship at the Folger Library would ensure my presence just blocks from the Capitol building during this remarkable week, I knew I could not miss the opportunity to freeze with more than a million people as Barack Obama took his oath of office.

Preparations were evidence many days in advance, most notably the lines and lines of port-a-potties lining the National Mall (about 3,000 altogether, I heard), each fastened shut with a hard plastic tie for security as well as for hygiene considerations. On Saturday I asked one of the ubiquitous Capitol Police officers where I might find a mail box so I could mail a utility bill. At 3:30 that morning, he told me, all 91 mail boxes on and around the Hill had been removed – one of countless of visible and invisible security precautions. Saturday evening, enough of the platform had been constructed and decorated that people had congregated to take pictures at the sight of where the swearing in would happen in three days. (Thanks, Rohan, for the photo!)





And that, essentially, became the theme of the whole inaugural period. Everyone just wanted to be there.





I woke up Tuesday morning at 6 am to check the weather and the crowds on tv before heading out. Judging my short distance from the Mall, the size of the crowds that had already been gathering since 3 a.m., and my own limited ability to stand in a crowd for untold hours, I decided that heading out at about 9 would just have to be sufficient. From my experience on Sunday attending the concert without ever glimpsing the Lincoln Memorial itself, I knew that all I really needed to be happy was a good set of loudspeakers and a crowd of excited people. I put on four layers on top, two pairs of wool socks, and polar fleece pants over my jeans. My inauguration expedition was really made possible, though, by the kind loans of boots and parka (courtesy of Virginia M. and Alden T. Vaughan respectively). Muffled in a scarf, protected by thick gloves and topped of by my white hat, I looked remarkably like a forest-green Stay-Puff Marshmellow Girl, but I felt prepared.

As soon as I got to the street it was clear which way I was going. I just joined the stream of humanity making its way down towards the south side of the Mall. At every corner you could get a new variation on directions and the status of gate openings and closings from a police officer. Closer to the Mall were many red-hat-wearing volunteers who seemed to have slightly more reliable information, though no one ever gave the exact same information twice. Diversion after diversion interrupted our path as we all snaked our way along. Most confusing was to get around the long lines of ticket holders waiting to get through their respective security checks (purple ticket, red ticket, orange ticket, etc.). The most startling image for me was coming around a corner and seeing hundreds upon hundreds of people lined up on I-395, waiting to get through security points that were still not in sight. (Later I found out that many of these people, including the ones being directed into the tunnel under the Mall, didn’t get through security in time for the swearing in!)

We trudged and trudged. People were tired but everyone was patient and happy. Some groups and families were working hard to stay together. Others, like me, were alone. Many people, like a gentleman from North Carolina that I met along the way, had lost their group and were now going solo. It was incredibly friendly.

















When I finally got up to Independence and 14th (you can check it out on a map, but it’s basically just southeast of the Washington Monument), many people were hopping a low barricade. Mr. North Carolina appeared out of no where, and a few of us all helped each other over. So far, so good... but then we found that we were in some kind of inadvertent pen formed by the barricades and a curved row of port-a-potties. Not being able to see where a real opening was, several “portas” had been lifted and set to the side to allow further access points to streams of people, half trying to crush their way in and half trying to crush themselves out of the small space. People on top of the portas did their best to direct traffic and give advice on movement to the essentially blind crowd below. (Yes, each porta had a spectator, and these folks had some of the best views in the entire Mall!) As we squeezed and pushed our way between the portas, hilarious encouragement came from the squatters above: “Yes, you can! Yes, you can!”


I settled in to a spot surrounded by a bunch of friendly folks from Georgia, Virginia, Minneapolis and Metro DC. We could hear plenty, and we took turns getting in position and on tiptoes to catch little glimpses of a distant JumboTron screen through an intervening tree. It was about 11 now, and this was good enough for me! There is something wonderful about sharing a big event with complete strangers. We had our jokes about not really being able to see anything, about how the street entrepreneurs should have been selling more Obama stepladders and periscopes alongside the t-shirts and key chains. We all laughed when the voice came over the PA to ask us to “remain standing” or “remain seated.” Movement of any kind was well nigh impossible.

It was for the most part a boisterous crowd. A gentleman behind me frequently punctuated some comment over the PA system with his own enthusiastic “OH, YEE-AAAH!!!”, and his commentary never got old. When the outgoing president was introduced, a CNN camera man atop a Tourmobile kiosk appeared to be leading a portion of the crowd in a chorus of “Nya-nya-nya-nya / Nya-nya-nya-nya / Hey-Hey / Good-bye.” By contrast to the overall high spirits and noisy reactions from the crowd, the opening prayer was spoken in almost complete silence. The minister’s short phrases rippled with a slight time delay through the PA system across the mall, creating an eerie echo effect. Huge cheers went up when the oath was taken. For Obama’s address, though, there was a prayer-like silence again. Since none of us could really see the JumboTrons, many of us just closed our eyes to listen more intently. There is nothing so silent and or so attentive as 2,000,000 people listening en masse.

It took me 2.5 hours to walk back to a location that, on a normal day, would be an easy stroll of about 1.5 miles by marble monuments and neo-classical architecture. The normal arteries around the Mall were so clogged that I had to make my way down to the riverfront and then across until I could double back to where I started out that morning. That route took me through neighborhoods that in my daily routine I had not yet seen, nor would I have seen them had not the historical occasion of the day knocked me out of my daily path.

It is common to speak of two DCs – the one with power centered around Capitol Hill and the one, quite literally disenfranchised, which surrounds it. What makes this disparity even more galling is that the more privileged residents of DC tend also to be temporary residents of four or eight years. I had the opportunity to talk with many long-term DC residents in the days leading up to the Inauguration, and these were conversations I might not have had except for the fact of the extraordinary occasion. In my section of the crowd, at least, the DC residents far outnumbered the visitors from Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Minneapolis, California and Massachusetts. We all felt welcomed to a kind of new neighborhood, and we were all just glad to be there.