‘One Nation Under a Groove:’ Reflections on Inauguration Day
By Victor Merina
reznet.org
January 26, 2009
WASHINGTON—This was a time for walking and waiting. For singing and praying. For shouting and whispering.
The nearly 2 million people moving up and down the avenues in the bitter cold did most of the walking. They navigated miles of boulevards looking for their seats or hoping to find a place to witness the president-to-be as he was sworn into office, or glimpse the new president afterwards as led his Inaugural Parade.
The most famous walk, of course, belonged to Barack Obama, along with the First Lady who strolled along the parade route waving to well-wishers as if it were a spring outing at Cherry Blossom time rather than a frigid January day with people huddled in parkas or swathed in woolen scarves all around them.
Most of the fans — who were sitting, standing, clapping their hands and stomping their feet in appreciation and for warmth — had been waiting for hours for the opportunity to applaud the formal beginning of an administration that would launch a new political era unlike anything the country has ever seen.
Some people had spent the night outdoors in temperatures dipping into the teens or made the early-morning journey in packed subway cars, buses and cars to join the massive crowds at security checkpoints at the U.S. Capitol or along the parade route. Others merged into the slow-moving lines of people headed for spots on the National Mall where they crammed themselves before giant television screens to view what was happening at the other end of the mall where the ceremony was held.
Many did not mind the hours-long wait. “I waited this long for a black president,” said one African American woman in her 70s. “I can wait a little longer.”
‘His Mind, His Body and His Soul’
Marcus D. Wells, Jr., chairman of the affiliated tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara, said he had been waiting for this very moment since he met candidate Obama last April in Grand Forks, N.D.
“I wanted to hear what was in his mind, his body and his soul,” said Wells of that initial meeting.
What the tribal chairman saw and heard was enough to convince him to endorse the senator from Illinois. “He spoke directly to Indian people,” Wells said. “He spoke directly to me. He didn’t speak above me or around me. He looked me right in the eye and asked what he could do for our tribe.”
As Wells sang the praises of Obama, so did others.
On Inauguration Day, four teenagers on E Street paused from their rush to locate a prime viewing spot to offer a rendition of a song — part rap and part bebop — that they wrote for the new president. A disheveled man on the mall blissfully sang off-key verses of “We Shall Overcome.” And two women in their fifties, campaign volunteers from Iowa, won the applause of strangers after bursting into a pro-Obama song they had written after retooling a rock ‘n’ roll song from decades earlier.
Betsy Zan, a college professor, and Sharon Anway, a music instructor and jazz musician, from Cedar Falls, Iowa, had been working on the Obama campaign since the earliest days of the Iowa caucuses, and now they were ecstatic to be attending the inaugural.
“I was inspired by the things he said about hope,” Zan said of the new president. “He touched my heart.”
‘O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma’
With the singing came the shouting. Triumphant shouts all around.
There were cries of “O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma” cascading from some adventurous enough to scale statues and monuments for key viewing spots. Others took the sheer joy of bellowing “President Obama!” again and again. Still others alternated the familiar cheers of a candidate on the hustings — “Yes, we can!” — to the chants echoed for a winner on Election Night and that now sanctified a president-in-waiting — “Yes, we did!”
There were those who shouted with their signs like the young man who walked against the stream of people moving past him while lofting an “Arrest Bush” sign over their heads. A parade of hooded demonstrators wearing orange coveralls marched through a park near the reflecting pool under signs to “Shut down Guantanamo!” And one man stood silently as he simply lifted a sign with the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
As crowds streamed by Constitution Hall, three young men triumphantly raised their own handwritten, high-decibel signs. One linked the occasion to a civil rights icon with “MLK is Smiling Today!!! Another bannered “From Slavery to History!!!” And a third simply reminded everyone of a change in presidential style and shift in political mood with his sign: “One Nation Under a Groove!!”
With the glitzy placards and shouting voices also came the whispers.
There was the father who spoke quietly to his son of the history they were about to witness. There was the mother who confessed to her daughter how her parents never believed a black man would make it to the White House — until now. There was the young girl whispering in her father’s ear to place her on his shoulders so she could see what all the excitement was about.
Uneasy Questions
There also were the dark, whispered questions people hated to hear, rarely spoken aloud but still present, threatening to sweep away all the good feeling of the moment: Will this last? Will he succeed? Will he be safe?
The soft-spoken conversations and the whispered talk took place among loved ones huddled under blankets and among strangers shivering next to each other. For some, those private conversations turned inward and became moments of reflection.
Harvey Spoonhunter, tribal chairman of the Northern Arapaho, turned thoughtful when he spoke wistfully about missing his opportunity to join the Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone dancers and drummers representing the state of Wyoming in the Inaugural Parade.
Spoonhunter got lost on his way to the staging area and found himself snarled in a traffic jam. Instead of marching and dancing alongside his 19-year-old son, Layha, and other tribal members in full regalia before the president and a vast audience of onlookers, the disappointed Spoonhunter was forced to return to his hotel.
Spoonhunter watched the historic day unfold alone in his room but despite his own lost moment, the Arapaho chief was filled with pride as he witnessed the swearing-in ceremony and watched his son and the other tribal members walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.
“It was very emotional especially for Native Americans,” he said. “They seldom recognize us, and now there is a lot of hope there.”
Spoonhunter spoke softly as he recalled the day’s events. “I never thought America would be ready for a black person for president,” he said. “Now there is hope for all ethnic minorities knowing that anything is possible.”
The walking. The waiting. The singing. The shouting. The whispering.
Public and Private Prayers
All were there on Inauguration Day — and so was the praying.
From the huddled crowds on the mall to the seated guests on the Capitol Hill steps, public prayers and private prayers abounded. From Pastor Rick Warren’s much-anticipated invocation to the Rev. Joseph Lowery’s humorous but pointed benediction, prayer surrounded the proceedings. Some were religious and some were secular but prayer was ever-present.
When Lowery spoke, there were responses in the crowd that rang of Sunday morning service with some in the audience raising hands in the air and shouting “Amen!” There was the president’s reference to the words of Scripture in his Inaugural Address. And on the eve of the inauguration, at the American Indian Pow Wow, solemn words voiced to the Creator sought blessings and protection for not just the president on such a historic occasion but for those present at the powwow who had served in the military or who had lost loved ones in the very wars that presidents have overseen.
These were prayers of the religious and the non-religious, all united in thoughts of a safe and successful journey for an old nation and a new president.
Among those looking ahead to this new journey are tribal leaders such as Chairman Wells of the Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara, who said he looks forward to the day he will travel from his Fort Berthold reservation home in North Dakota to the White House where he will sit with President Obama.
“We will be there,” said Wells. “And we will leave him a gift and it will have a lot prayers in it and it will get him to where he’s going.”
