speak
I was there
By Elliot Kort ekort@kansan.com
Setting the stage for watching President Obama's inauguration
I shifted my weight from side to side. Left, right. Left, right. I turned to my girlfriend.
"Can you feel your feet?" she asked.
"I think so," I said.
Standing for six hours straight in 30-degree temperatures wreaks havoc on the body. Underneath five layers of clothing, my rib cage constricted. Had I stumbled, I would not have fallen. We were hundreds of yards away from the Capitol, but children still sat on their parents' shoulders. Gray-haired men and women cocooned in fur coats. Propped up by canes, they craned their necks trying to get a better view. American flags of all sizes waved. History was on every person's mind and tongue. Standing there in the numbing cold, I realized that my perspective regarding the world was changing for a second time. This man, whom I did not know of six years ago, had changed my world.
The first change came much earlier. Five years ago, deep into the 2004 presidential campaign, I was trying (in vain) to enthuse myself about yet another Democratic presidential candidate. Then, during 2004's Democratic Convention, a relatively young man—a state senator from Illinois—walked up to the microphone in Boston. He made me believe that we could be better than we were, and that we could give our children a world of near infinite opportunity. My heart rose in my chest, and I knew one day I would cast my vote for him as president. Months later, I needed to see him sworn in.
Getting off the train at D.C.'s Union Station a week before the inauguration was unlike anything I had ever experienced. The entirety of the nation's capital had been transformed into Obamatown, USA. His face was everywhere: all over buttons, T-shirts, hats and scarves being sold on every street corner. Advertisers such as IKEA and Pepsi informed everyone that change and hope were as close as their nearest products. An electricity ran throughout the city and only grew as days ticked off the calendar
toward january 20.
People walked the streets quietly, anticipating what was to come. As I sat in front of the windows at a restaurant two days before the inauguration, I saw thousands of out-of-towners walking around aimlessly with different groups. Obama's name or face was stitched, painted or bedazzled on every visible bit of clothing. Metro escalators were overrun with people who didn't know to walk on the left and stand on the right. People were everywhere. I had attempted to comprehend the scope of how many people would be in the city for the event. But even seeing the city's population grow exponentially in the days leading up to the event, I could not prepare myself for what was to come.
The morning of the inauguration, the city woke early. An estimated two million people were to descend on the National Mall. Taking a packed 6 a.m. bus into the heart of D.C. with my girlfriend and her roommate, I couldn't help laughing. I was experiencing a perfect metaphor. That morning, in the last waking hours of the Bush administration, we walked through the empty streets of D.C. in the frigid dark. But as we arrived on the Mall, with almost cinematic timing, the sun began to rise over the Capitol.A warm wave washed over me. Our moment as a generation, my moment as an American adult, had finally arrived.
Pushing down closer, immersing ourselves in the crowd, I was struck not only by its candor but also its composition. People of countless ages, races and economic backgrounds had come together to witness the moment as one. Older women stood around me with their canes and fur coats. They seemed to summon every ounce of their strength to endure the cold, to be there, to bear witness. Black families huddled close together, urging their children to pay as close attention as possible. They wanted their kids to remember the day as vividly as possible. Certainly this was not the first time such a group had gathered to support the ideas
of hope and change. But to stand there, my body almost crushed up against other bodies, and to look out and see nothing but millions of optimistic and ecstatic faces, left me utterly stunned. Standing near the American History Smithsonian, it felt as if we were miles away from the stage. But just to be there was enough for us.
As six hours slowly passed and the ceremonies grew near, the crowd began to thaw under the warmth of excitement until, at last, a presidential motorcade appeared on each of the JumboTrons placed throughout the Mall. An enormous cheer sounded through the crowd. It rushed from the Capitol back to the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, a magnanimous wave of sound. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard, and was surpassed only when the president-elect himself stepped onto the dais. As Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens stood to swear in the new vice president, an eerie calm descended on the crowd. It was so quiet I could hear the echoes of the other speakers sounding throughout the mall.After Vice President Biden finished his oath, the crowd cheered. One woman standing close to me even yelled, "One down. One to go."
Then the moment we were all waiting for.
As Obama strode toward the podium and his place in history, I glanced around and considered all the stories represented by the people I saw, all the journeys taken from near and far to make it to that exact moment. For months, I'd come to believe that Obama was the youth's candidate. He was to be our guiding light in the world of politics—our John F. Kennedy. But standing there among so many different people, it all became suddenly clear: He belongs to all of us.
Top: Elliot Kort stands with friends Elyse Greenberg and Joellen Kriss in front of the Washington Monument. Second to top: Spectators wave flags as the proceedings get underway.
Second to bottom: Kort stands in front of a mobile MSNBC television studio set up on the national mall. Bottom: The crowd exits the mall after the festivities conclude
March 5,2009
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