JAMAL and Sarah were so cold as they waited for Barack Obama to arrive at Baltimore's War Memorial Plaza that they were doing callisthenics to keep their circulation going, writes Denis Stauntonin Baltimore
Along with 40,000 others who had come to see the president-elect at the last stop before he arrived in Washington on a whistle-stop train ride from Philadelphia, the Arkansas couple were swaddled in heavy coats, scarves, thick gloves and big, woolly hats.
“I’ve never felt cold like this my whole life,” Sarah said, trembling.
“But I wouldn’t miss this for anything. It’s a piece of history – and not just for African-Americans but for all Americans.”
Obama’s train journey followed the route taken by Abraham Lincoln for his inauguration, stopping at Wilmington, Delaware, to pick up vice-president-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill.
When Obama and his wife Michelle, who turned 45 on Saturday, stepped out on the stage with the Bidens, the Baltimore crowd erupted into cheering, applause and cries of “Yes, we can” and “We love you, Barack”.
The president-elect said that he had wanted to stop in Baltimore to pay tribute to the city's role in defending the United States against the British at Fort McHenry in 1814, a battle that inspired The Star-Spangled Banner.
“They were a varied lot, these troops: sailors, militiamen, and even a runaway slave. But on one long and rainy night, they beat back the greatest navy that the world had ever known,” Obama said.
Obama’s primary message, however, was a new call to arms, urging Americans to unite in confronting the challenges of two wars abroad and an economy on the brink of depression.
“While our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not,” the president-elect said.
“What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that those first patriots displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives – from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry – an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.”
The president-elect acknowledged House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Baltimore native, and Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, along with the state’s elected officials.
However, he avoided mentioning Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon, who was indicted last week on criminal corruption charges.
In what may have been a preview of tomorrow’s inauguration address, Obama told his shivering Baltimore audience that the work ahead was not only for the government but for the citizens of the United States too.
“Starting now, let’s take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union,” the president-elect said.
“Let’s all of us do our part to rebuild this country. Let’s make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning.
“Join me in this effort. Join one another in this effort. And together, mindful of our proud history, hopeful for the future, let’s seek a better world in our time.”