Personal Account of Barack Obama’s Inauguration Day
My brother went to the Presidential Inauguration last Tuesday. This is his write-up.
I just wanted to write up something about the inauguration yesterday while the thoughts are still fresh in my mind. There are no words to describe what the feeling was like down there. I was in the masses right in the middle between the Capital building and the Washington monument. The part that amazes me the most was the look that people had because everyone had his/her own personal story and connection to the moment and why they came down there.
Now the story about how to get down there is a story in itself and I will get to that later. Everyone will think it is crazy but for this day, everything was worth it and that was part of the bond everyone had because everyone down there had gone through the same thing just to get there.
I think everyone knows I have been a big Obama supporter form the beginning and been following this campaign throughout. For me to be there at the inauguration was just a sense of pride to feel like I have been a small part of the process and of course hope that things will change in this country. There were many African Americans of all ages. I would estimate the number at over a third to half the crowd. You could see what the moment meant to them but you also met and talked with people from all over the country when you were on the train, at Starbucks, walking to the event, and while you were there.
Now I just wanted to give you a feel of what the logistics were like because it was crazy. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience and you really needed to have that level of commitment to get there. My day started out leaving my apartment at 3:00. I was meeting up with some friends at the plan was to get on the first train out at 4:00 AM. Needless to say the start of the lines was right there getting into the train station.
By time everyone got together we made it into DC at 5:30 and walked to the mall. By the time we settled into our position at 6AM, the middle of the mall is as far as we got. So it was there that I stayed till the event started at 11:30 AM. After 7AM you did not want to move and go anywhere because you would have never been able to make it back.
It was cold but you had to know that going in. I really didn’t feel it till after the event and here was when things got really crazy. DC was in total lock down. They had closed streets and access points to begin with and with the amount of people there in the mall they decided to close off access to the parade route.
If you are not familiar with DC, closing off the parade route meant people could not cross back into the city from the mall and with a million plus people there nobody really knew where to go. After tracing back and forth in the crown we finally found some security people that told us the only way to go the direction we needed was the end of the mall. Keep in mind the mall is about two miles in length. So we basically hung out around the Washington monument waiting for the crowd to thin out.
That is where the cold really hit. But we finally made it out and had to walk another mile after getting out of the mall to access a train station that was not flooded with people. You might have seen the stands had no people for the parade. Well what happened was most people could not get there and it was too long to out in the cold to make it through even if you wanted to. I made it back to the apartment at 4 PM with many memories.