The Long Wait for a Quick Glimpse of History

Maude J. Thompson, Vicki Thompson and Paula Godfrey move closer to the hotel. Three striking black women walking down the street.

"I hope to get a glimpse, if not a touch," says Maude Thompson, who's visiting from North Carolina. "I worked so hard for them during the primary and the election. I never met him. But I got a beautiful letter from him and his wife thanking me."

Vicki Thompson, her daughter, is wearing a full-length raccoon coat with black lining on which her name is embroidered in white. She talks about the historical moment: "A black man in the White House."

Godfrey, the Thompsons' cousin and a consultant from Herndon, says: "I don't know that racism will end or that it will become more pronounced."

They talk about Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and the difficulty of the presidential campaign. Every now and again, they glance at the windows of the hotel.

There is more movement on the street. People come and go. A group of tourists from Brazil wonders why so many people are gathered. Somebody tells them that President-elect Obama is coming and that Michelle Obama and the girls are already inside. They shade their eyes and look up at the windows of the hotel. They wait.

A Secret Service agent walks down the street. The waiting is like being in a movie. You know something will happen. But when? What? The sun is moving overhead. A squirrel crosses the sidewalk. The white canopy tent attached to a side hotel entrance flaps.

Maybe you will see nothing. Maybe you too will leave without the glimpse. It's getting close to lunchtime. The window with the light is still blank. Nobody has appeared.

Then suddenly and quietly, four black SUVS pour out of the white canopy tent attached to the hotel. The crowd hurries to the corner. Inside the second black SUV, an arm in a red coat is raised. "It's Michelle Obama!" Maude Thompson says. The crowd waves back. Mrs. Obama waves again. The girls are inside as well. Malia, her hair down, looks straight ahead. Younger sister Sasha, barely tall enough to see out of the window, peers at the onlookers with an unflinching directness, a little girl the day before starting a new school.

In seconds, the black SUVs hurry down the street, disappearing behind flashing lights and leaving behind awe.

"I saw her," says Vicki Thompson.

"If you weren't paying attention, you would have missed the whole thing," a woman in the crowd says.

"I saw her hand go up. I got the glimpse. The hand wave," Maude Thompson says, smiling.

An Obama transition aide will say later that she cannot reveal where Michelle Obama and the girls were going Sunday afternoon. "They are just in D.C. getting settled," she says. You explain the desire for people to know, and she explains the balancing act. "There is novelty that they are here. But there is still a need to protect their time as a family," she says.

The street is quiet. The white canopies flap. The crowd vanishes, having gotten what it needed: a glimpse and then a wave.

The street will empty for more hours. Then fill again as a new crowd arrives to await the president-elect, who finally arrives around 7:30 in a sleek presidential motorcade going the opposite direction down a one-way street. You see Obama inside the second car. For just a moment. Then in a flash he is inside the hotel. You do not notice whether he waved.