GUEST EDITORIAL: OBAMA EYEWITNESS
Yes, sometimes it is about who you know. In this case, I know my sister, Heather Shumaker, and she recently had the good fortune (?) to travel to Washington, D.C. for this nation’s most recent peaceful political regime change, otherwise known as the Obama inaugural. Her eyewitness account follows:
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As soon as we left the Metro station for the Mall, volunteers with bright red hats called out: “Good morning! Welcome to History!” It was 7:00am, Inauguration day in Washington, DC.
I’d been up for hours to reach this point. We started at 5:00am, a few hours too late in retrospect. The poor subway system couldn’t support the massive crowds that clogged the trains. The 25-minute train ride took 2 hours as more eager well-wishers tried to climb on. But the crowd was happy. “Where you from? Michigan? I’m from Alabama!” Traverse City had seemed a long way from the jubilation in Grant Park on election night, so I journeyed to DC to share in the fun.
Our train was so full that exiting was impossible. “The next station is closed due to crush loads.” We had to ride on by our stop and shuffle forward inch by inch to leave the platform. So far so good, though, Metro workers directed the crowd with drill-team style chants. “Keep it moo-ving!” (“Keep it moving!” we echoed). “Red light, stop light!” (“Red light, stop light!”).
Then into daylight and the joy of millions of people having a party. True Obama-mania. Street vendors called out “Obama-Obama-Obama! Michelle-Michelle-Michelle! We have posters, t-shirts, buttons!” Hawkers sold everything Obama – air fresheners, hand puppets, and Obama condoms, (“We sell to white people, too!”) along with survival gear like hand warmers, camp chairs and wool hats. T-shirt slogans and posters depicted Obama in his new role as Chief Hero to the people. Obama in a superman pose with “O” busting through on his chest. Obama as a Jedi Knight holding a light saber. So much hoped pinned on this one man.
Most of the t-shirts were black. Most of the vendors were black. In a national day of coming together, there was a unique pride among African-American families, and it showed in the signs and swag. “My president is black,” stated one shirt. Another showed a picture of the White House with the words, “This is OUR house now.” Not only was a new generation reclaiming America, but many people were feeling included for the first time ever.
The crowd was a sea of races. It did not look like northern Michigan, but neither did it look like America. The inauguration crowd was geographically diverse, but disproportionately African-American.
The day was also a study of winter coats and hats – fur-trimmed, reggae, Vietnam veteran baseball caps and tweed caps with ear muffs. My favorites were the legions of black women, age 50 plus, who were decked out in dark fur coats that swept to their toes. Many sported rows of Obama buttons pinned to their hats and buttonholes.
After the initial euphoria of being out of the Metro train squish, we concentrated on getting into the Mall itself. I had emailed Representative Dave Camp’s office the morning of November 5, and had official tickets to a standing-room area of the Mall close to the capitol. But alas, the line for Silver Ticket holders stretched out for blocks as hundreds of thousands tried to make it through the security bottleneck. We traced the line for 45 minutes and never did find the end. It was clearly going to be multi-hour wait, and we would miss the swearing-in ceremony. Plan B. Get into the Mall in the general public area – anywhere. A wise choice. Many silver ticket holders never got in at all.
We churned through the crowd looking for an opening to the Mall, but everything was blocked. “This entrance is now closed! Go down to the 14th Street entrance!” Painfully, we worked our way down, just to find the next entrance closed, too. Twice the crowd jammed so tightly it was scary. Families linked hands to stay together and stay upright. A few people slipped through the bushes and breached security, but we didn’t follow. With snipers on the rooftops, it didn’t seem wise to crash the party. The mood on the streets parallel to the Mall turned sour and frustrated. Families who had traveled thousands of miles and spent hundreds of dollars to be there, were being denied entry.
By 10:30am, I ended up near a handicapped entrance guarded by Secret Service agents. We could hear bits of music from the opening ceremony, but nothing else. Once in awhile, the Secret Service guards would open the barricades to let a group with a wheelchair pass through. My hopes had begun to sink when our group was adopted by an elderly African-American woman from Cincinnati. “Try sweet talking that guard,” I told her. “He’s been letting the most people in.” The next thing I knew, the barrier swung open, and the woman told the guard, “Let her in, too, she’s with me.”
We reached the actual Mall near the National Gallery of Art. This area, declared “Full” by the police, was amazingly empty. We had plenty of room to jump and move, and could easily walk right up to a JumboTron screen. Part of my heart remained with the people still stuck on the roads parallel to the Mall, but the problem was beyond our control. The next moment, the lucky ones in the Mall erupted with cheers as the Obama family appeared.
People waved flags, thumped mittens and cheered wildly every time someone they liked appeared – Clinton, Biden, Michelle Obama, or the Man himself. When Bush or Cheney came out, the flags dropped. Most people were silent and a few folks booed. We laughed when the announcer intoned, “Please remain standing for our national anthem.” Quite funny when we’d been on our feet since 5am! Some sang “Hit the road, Bush, and don’t you come back no more, no more…” and when the Bush helicopter lifted off people sang “Na na na na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye now.”
After the inauguration, some newspaper columnists mused that flag-waving patriotism is back in. Another said, “the crowd was immense, and they all had flags!” No surprise; we were given flags. As soon as we entered the Mall, volunteers handed out American flags stapled on 2-foot long sticks to everyone. Maybe they didn’t get the security memo that long, pointy objects were banned. I’ve never felt inclined to hoot and holler and wave the stars and stripes before, but the flag has never belonged to me before. Flag-waving was suddenly “in” because now the symbol meant something different. Obama reclaimed the flag.
The cheers on the Mall when the Obama family appeared were closely matched by cheers in the Smithsonian museums when the women took over the men’s restrooms. First women commandeered the upstairs restrooms, then they took over the whole building.
I’m no expert on crowd sizes, but there were certainly more than a million people milling around DC. The Washington Post analyzed a satellite image of the Mall at 11:19am and declared it was “more than a million.” That figure neglects all the people on the parade route, plus the hundreds of thousands crowding the general entryways and the long lines trying to reach blue, silver and other ticket gates. Those people were off the map, and definitely not counted. Counting the parade people (many camped out since 4am) and the lines and masses denied entry, the actual number present was likely 2-3 million.
DC did its best to prepare for huge crowds, but they didn’t think logistics through very well. The day before the Inauguration, we spent 7 hours picking up the coveted tickets from the Congressional office building. I brought Luke, since I thought – it’s just a ride on the Metro. We ended up waiting outside in a 2 ½ hour line along with 250,000 other would-be ticket holders. I guess they didn’t want to risk mailing the tickets so they wouldn’t end up for sale on Ebay. On Inauguration Day, the silver ticket holders (the vast majority) were supposed to enter through a single security gate, one at a time. How do you fit 150,000 people through one door quickly? No wonder the line stretched for hours. The police congratulated themselves that the event was “an absolute success with no incidents,” but that was solely due to the Happy Crowd who bore the patience of generations. No one could anticipate how many people would show up in the general public area, but the exact number of ticketholders was known far in advance.
After an inspirational day of “Yes, we can!” getting out of DC could be summed up by the motto of “No, you can’t.” Metro stations shut down under the load. Police, sheriffs, army troops and Secret Service agents all gave conflicting directions. Bridges that were supposed to be open were closed. We were told to walk to Virginia, got halfway over the Potomac River, and then were told to turn around. We would hear that a subway station was now open, walk a mile in that direction, then be blocked and directed another way. The uncoordination was appalling. Police at one street corner didn’t communicate with their mates down the block, and masses of people walked for hours in circles. It took us four hours to successfully exit DC. Luckily, the good mood of the day lingered, but the exercise in patience gave me no confidence in Homeland Security. This was an expected event. Homeland Security seemed in no shape to manage crowds let alone disasters.
I’d been to DC before during cherry blossom time to tour the sights under warm and sunny skies. Washington DC was 28 F that day at noon, and I wore a triple layer of clothing, including long underwear and snowpants. But on this bleak January day, the stone monuments seemed sacred at last. Like Michelle Obama, I felt proud to be American for one of the first times in my life.
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Heather Shumaker is a freelance writer from Traverse City, Michigan. Her work includes magazine articles, books and life histories. She specializes in parenting and environmental topics, and her publications include: Parenting, Pregnancy, Organic Gardening, Traverse, Wisconsin Natural Resources and Earthwatch Radio. She is currently at work on the book Shoot for the Moon, telling the story of how a nonprofit land trust tried to preserve a Great Lakes sand dune from development by an energy corporation.
Photo by Mark Rigney
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Monday, February 2, 2009
