The Peaceful Gathering of Millions

The Inauguration of Barack Obama

 

By Bobbi Miller-Moro

 

Filmmakers Luis and Bobbi Moro

 

Like penguins we huddled against the biting, cold Washington DC air in a group of a couple hundred people. And that was at 3:45 am on the morning of the Inauguration on 3^rd street. Although I was dressed with many layers and a heavy thick coat and boots, the icy temperatures found their way to my core. I looked over to my almost 17 year old son Robert, and he was shivering in his California Cadet Corp highly decorated Class A uniform, “I have to acclimate, I could do it” he stammered. He did not have enough layers on, or a warm jacket. My husband Luis and I covered him with a blanket, and what followed was the theme that carried the most peaceful gathering of almost 2 million strangers for the duration of the celebration of Barack Obama taking the oath to become the 44^th President of The United States of America.

 

A young woman from Lebanese descent, living in Saudi Arabia told me that she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be here to celebrate for us and with us, and flew in just for the inauguration. She took off her fur scarf, and gave her blue and pink flowered blanket to my son (which we kept as a souvenir), and took loving care to put it around him, and cover his ears and tuck him in tight. Then a group of us sat on the floor and tucked our heads to our knees, sitting tightly packed shoulder to shoulder touching and prayed for the sunrise. The crowd grew to a thousand people in a matter of hours.

 

There were many entrances and streets to cross Pennsylvania Ave to The Mall, and we had visited them all from 14^th street all the way up to 3^rd. The police at each barricade told us that 3^rd street was the best bet to put us at the front of The Mall in the free non-ticketed area. It would be the best seats in The Mall. When they opened the security checkpoint at around 7:30 am, we shuffled in groups of 50 to be scanned and checked. We took our jackets off, and opened our bags. When we were cleared, we rushed to Pennsylvania Ave to be greeted by a barrier that prevented anyone from crossing Pennsylvania Ave to go to The Mall. We watched stunned, across the street as The Mall was starting to fill up with people, and it was not coming from our direction.

 

We double checked our maps, and realized they had changed the whole map. The map was no longer accurate. Our journey began to find a way across the street. Four and half hours later we finally gave up, after a elderly woman in an electric wheel chair could not move forward without hitting someone in front of her with her metal foot rest, and plunged right into my husbands ankle, and almost knocked him over her. Walking was out of the question. We were afraid at this point that we were going to miss the inauguration all together, and the trip to DC would have been futile.

 

We looked at each other and made the decision to take advantage of our tickets to get into the Newseum, and watch it from inside. We had been turned away at many of the possible street crossings, because they kept closing them before we approached. After the wheel chair incident on 9^th street, the guard told us that 14^th street was the next available street crossing.

 

In order to cross the street, which took about 30 minutes, you had to wait in a crowd of people until the police gave you the right to pass and then about 50-100 people could cross. The problem was when we shuffled across the street we could not get on the curb due to the nearly 500 hundred people waiting to cross in your direction.

 

Essentially, you walked into a wall of people. They had to part in order to let a stream of us through their sea of people. A lot of conversations, jokes, sarcasm about the design of the inauguration were rampant throughout the massive crowds trying to navigate. People with silver tickets and gold tickets had their arms raised above the crowds waving them to any police that could help them get across to The Mall.

 

The temperature was still in the teens as we shivered for hours looking for a place to watch the inauguration; this is the time when we found our way to the Newseum. So did 500 other people. We stood in a line that lasted 2 hours before we got to the check in, where our jackets and bags were checked one at a time. As I walked to the lobby and started to pull off my scarf, I looked up to see a humungous big screen monitor about 20 x 15 feet suspended from the ceiling by cables. In that moment the inauguration just began and the monitor turned on. I found a spot along the glass wall and slumped to the floor in exhaustion as my husband limped with his painful ankle to where I was standing. The museum personnel politely asked me to stand, that there was no sitting.

 

I slowly pulled myself up, and within minutes there were at least twenty, then fifty people standing next to us and they all sat down exhausted. So did we, and soon the entire floor museum was packed with people sitting and laying to look up to the screen. I looked over my shoulder and saw through the massive plated glass panels of the museum wall-the Capital Building. It was surreal. They let us sit.

 

People’s belongings and legs, feet were touching and nobody cared. The inauguration began. The images were huge, so it was almost better than standing in The Mall watching from the video-trons outside, although I would have loved to be in a crowd that size to feel the energy, this was still good enough.

 

Watching Barack Obama walking down the aisle with a look on his face so peaceful, beautiful and proud brought tears to my eyes. I cried the rest of the inauguration and cheered with the entire museum-every packed floor cheered. We enjoyed it together.

 

The experience up until that point had been an oxymoron. From all the changes in security, to the lack of paid ticket people that got in-let alone non-ticketed people- the frustration crossing the street, the lack of places to sit, the confusion and chaos, there was a collective mood of jubilation. We knew that every single one of us caused Barack Obama to be able to stand on that balcony ledge in one the most famous buildings in the world, to take an oath of office to become our President and fight for us and democracy in front of all of us.

 

We looked at each other with love and acceptance and we came from all corners of the planet. People gave each other things like hand warmers, and scarves. We helped each other up and to sit down, snuggling up against someone in front of you was not a second thought. We were one for one and one for all. This is what it is all about I thought, this is what we campaigned with Obama for, this is what we are about. To be the peaceful millions united.

 

Bobbi Miller-Moro is an author of LESSONS WE LEARNED FROM OBAMA: from a former Republican mother of five. A filmmaker and artist, Bobbi is a proud mother of five children and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.