It might seem more sensible to watch the inauguration from home but for many taking part in history outweighs the discomfort, writes Kathy Sheridanin Washington
BENEATH THE bubble of exuberance and hope that is Washington DC, a great debate has raged over whether people would be better advised to stay home and watch today’s inauguration on television.
There is the weather; elegant flurries of snow appeared yesterday in conditions so bone-chilling that visitor recommendations routinely include thermal underwear and buffers – newspaper, cardboard – between feet and ground.
There is the security lockdown (even the FBI building on Pennsylvania Ave has been shut) and the 4am start. Add the interminable queues, the lack of “porta-potties”, the crush on the Metro, the banning of buggies and backpacks, the earnest injunction by inauguration veterans to leave small children and ailing folk at home. There is a whisper that skinhead bigots from Virginia may crash the party and spark a riot.
Ominously, says one who had sight of the security plans, the only bridge being left open to the Capitol is from Anacostia – a poor district typified by gang violence and drug busts. In short, goes the argument, anyone who stays at home will find it cheaper, safer, more comfortable, and have a better view.
Has it worked? Well, suddenly hotel rooms are available at the heart of the action. Predicted numbers have fallen from a high of four million to perhaps one and half to two million. Yesterday, at the peak of the four-day holiday, the city and transport system were coping comfortably.
So have the nay-sayers won? “Yeah, we heard all that. We could have stayed at home. We’d have seen everything, sure. But we’d have been part of nothing,” said Clancy, an African-American mother of two small children from Colorado. “People were lynched and murdered so we blacks could vote. Why should we complain about a few hours in the cold?
“Sure we’ll end up watching it on the jumbotrons [big screens] but years from now, these little kids of mine will be able to say ‘I was there’, they stood in the capital and were part of it,” she said earnestly, before adding with a big belly laugh : “And black is in. Didn’t you know?”
She was wearing what in other circumstances might be viewed as a curious combination of gleaming, full-length mink coat and white runners; here in icy, walker-friendly Washington, it made perfect sense. Around us, streams of out-of-towners stood anxiously scanning maps, while others struggled with the metro ticket system. But Washington was on top of it; in the stations, helpful employees were standing by to explain the ticket mechanics, on the streets outside, “ambassadors” armed with maps and information were there to help. Remarkably, these buoyed-up visitors look one another in the eye and smile, a novel experience in a town full of egotistical transients. “Your scarf is just lovely,” says one total stranger to another in the street.
Meanwhile, it was no surprise that on a day he called on the nation to serve, Obama himself attracted the crowds to the Sasha Bruce Youthwork shelter for homeless teens in Northeast Washington, where he rolled up the sleeves of his white open-necked shirt to help paint one of the boys’ dormitory rooms under renovation. Outside the shelter, more than 300 residents of the neighbourhood gathered and chanted Obama’s campaign slogan, “Yes, we can!”
But the true, extraordinary potency of his leadership was demonstrated in other places around the capital and the nation, where thousands upon thousands of ordinary Americans flock to serve at local projects, drawn not by celebrity but by some spiritual urge to follow his call.
In Washington, out at the RFK Stadium beside the Columbian National Guard Armoury, amid the military trucks and armoured cars and bellowed orders, up to 20,000 Americans of every creed and colour, many of whom had driven for days from Las Vegas, Dallas, Atlanta and Arizona, were giving flesh to Obama’s message. They queued in a decidedly unglamorous setting to make parcels of water and treats such as brownies and gum for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not all were pro-military. Barbara said her son was in the reserves and that’s why she was here: “I have no doubt the invasion was wrong but he made a commitment 20 years ago and I’m here to support him and to show Obama that we are ready for anything he asks of us. And I mean anything . . .”
Claire Costello, a New Jersey native of Irish extraction, was wearing a diamante pin spelling out Obama’s name: “It’s the whole idea of Obama making it a day of service . . . Instead of going to the mall or buying a mattress in the sales, it’s become a day to honour again . . . To me, he is America. People wondered if white, educated women voted for him. Well, I can tell you I did and so did many women I know.”
While some around us argued that colour is not an issue, Karla Brown, an African-American with her husband and two children, said gently that race was “certainly” a factor in her determination to be in Washington “in these momentous days . . . For me, it’s like a chance to exhale. And for my children, it’s a chance to inhale some hope
. . . When people look at me now, they’re going to see a positive family, they’re going to see a different aspect of people of colour, instead of the stereotypes of gangsta rappers and poor single moms. The National Day of Service is a testament of support to Obama as a leader. It shows the American dream does include us. It really does matter; it’s no longer about going through the motions.”
And after a six-hour drive from North Carolina, the four of them headed into the queue, to follow the message of the man some call The One.