Crammed on an overcrowded Mall on a cold January day? Been there.
Watched America’s first African American president take the oath of office? Done that.
(Sarah L. Voisin/THE WASHINGTON POST) - Aaron Jenkins is pictured with the U.S. Capitol in the background. He escorted the inaugural poet during the 2009 event and was on the platform when Obama spoke.
Are you coming to Washington for Obama's inauguration? If so, what motivates you: patriotism, a personal connection or something else? Share with us the story of why you are coming.
Inauguration mouse pad featuring the Obama family? Got one.
Willing to do it all over again? Oh yeah.
“There is no way I’m not going to be there again,” declared Patricia Leake, a restaurant management consultant from Raleigh, N.C., who began planning her second trip to an Obama inauguration the day after the November election. “I don’t expect it to be as historical as the first one. But it will be exciting, and it will show the faith we still have in him.”
The kickoff to President Obama’s second term is expected to be a significantly smaller affair than the monumental launch of his first, when nearly 2 million celebrants flooded the Mall, the parade route and dozens of balls and parties.
But hordes of people who made it in 2009 are getting back into their puffy coats and texting gloves to see history repeat itself. Some just want to cheer their candidate after a hard-fought campaign. Some are coming to revel in the added validation that comes with being the country’s first reelected African American president. Others are bringing family members who were too young to appreciate it before — and who might not get another chance.
“Who knows when we will have another black president,” said Leake, an African American who will have four nieces with her on the bus from North Carolina this time. “I want them to witness this so they will remember it and work to make sure that it does happen again.”
Few expect a replay of the euphoria of four years ago, when strangers embraced and tears froze and impossibility became history when the words “I do solemnly swear” rang out across the hushed multitudes.
But after 48 months of economic misery and political turmoil, many are seeking even an echo of the day that was repeatedly characterized as the one “I never thought I’d live to see.”
“That was the most miraculous, exciting moment that we — as a collective — had” made happen, said Alice Thomas, a Howard law professor. Her own struggles to be a witness to that moment (and “not to a TV screen”) included hoisting her then 70-pound, 11-year-old son Ajani onto her shoulders, in spite of the arm she had broken at an inauguration party the night before.
Now splint-less, she plans to return, although she doesn’t have tickets and the crush of out-of-town friends and family who appeared last time has not materialized. It will be an easier, if less momentous, swearing in.
But E. Ethelbert Miller, a Washington author and poet, says Obama’s second inauguration may be the more significant of the two as a sign of the country’s growing comfort with a black leader. By winning decisively, especially in the midst of the economic downturn, the president avoided the whispers of “fluke” and dismissals as a one-term wonder.
“As an African American, what you really got happy about was you realized white people could go and elect a black president not just once, but twice,” Miller said.
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