The Inauguration, Part 2: Gabi and Lauren Bring Back the Memories

On the morn­ing of the swear­ing in of the 44^th Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, Danville senior Gabi Potts arose at 2:30 a.m. from her bed in the Mar­riott Con­fer­ence Cen­ter in Wash­ing­ton D.C.  At 4:30 she arrived at Union Sta­tion. She felt safe, but intim­i­dat­ed by the four Secret Ser­vice agents stand­ing there with their assault rifles. At 5:30, she walked to a des­ig­nat­ed Sil­ver Gate on 3^rd street and pre­sent­ed her ticket. 

Once inside the Mall Stand­ing Area, she was near­ly knocked over by Jesse Jack­son, who was bustling to the ABC broad­cast­ing booth. At 6:30 she had made her way to the front, near the right side of the Reflect­ing Pool. She elect­ed to stand against a con­crete bar­ri­cade where she felt pro­tect­ed from the pres­sure of the crowd that was already begin­ning to flow into the area. Dur­ing that walk she had tripped, skinned her knee, and lost and recov­ered a shoe. 

At 5:30 a.m., Danville fresh­man Lau­ren Peter­son arose from her bed at the Best West­ern in Tysons Cor­ner, Vir­ginia. At 6:30 she board­ed a shut­tle bus with oth­er stu­dents in her group and was brought into the city. They were dropped at a point near the Nation­al Muse­um of the Amer­i­can Indi­an. After going through a secu­ri­ty check­point at the Muse­um, sim­i­lar to what air­line pas­sen­gers are sent through, they attend­ed a hot choco­late reception. 

But, as the time neared for the cer­e­mo­ny, her group of five decid­ed they want­ed to go into the crowd. Once more they cleared secu­ri­ty and worked their way toward one of the Sil­ver Gates. Hav­ing no tick­ets, they wait­ed near the fence, sur­pris­ing­ly close to where Gabi was wait­ing. Lau­ren  remem­bers  feel­ing a strong sense of anx­i­ety about what could hap­pen; all the show of force in Wash­ing­ton made that pos­si­bil­i­ty obvi­ous. She could see where Barack Oba­ma was stand­ing, but the large crowd made actu­al view­ing of the event impos­si­ble. Want­i­ng to see and hear the cer­e­mo­ny, her group returned to the Muse­um to watch it on the Jum­bo Tron. 

Gabi felt a fright­en­ing surge in the crowd behind her as the cer­e­mo­ny neared. The fence and lack of tick­ets were no longer an imped­i­ment; the peo­ple sim­ply moved for­ward, and the fence was gone. But she stood her ground, one of two mil­lion who were there to per­son­al­ly wit­ness the swear­ing in of America’s first African-Amer­i­can Pres­i­dent. “I could see his sil­hou­ette from that dis­tance, his hand raised for the oath,” she said.

Lau­ren remem­bers that moment as one of silence, a stop­ping, a col­lec­tive hold­ing of the breath. “A per­fect moment,” she said. “All of our his­to­ry of divi­sion was behind us, and we were look­ing into the future. And there was hope.”

Gabi describes the sound that fol­lowed after his hand dropped. “Peo­ple cried and screamed. Words like, ‘final­ly’ and ‘yes we can’ and ‘thank you.’ It was a pas­sion­ate and nat­ur­al out­pour­ing of emo­tion that rose all around me.”

“We felt like one fam­i­ly, not sep­a­rat­ed,” said Lauren. 

The moment that had brought peo­ple of all ages and col­ors to the White House was over quick­ly. Gabi remem­bers that many turned after the oath and began cross­ing back over the lawns, not even stay­ing to hear Pres­i­dent Obama’s speech. They had come for one reason–to watch with their own eyes the defin­ing instant when Amer­i­ca became tru­ly a land of oppor­tu­ni­ty for all.

The girls arrived in Wash­ing­ton on Jan­u­ary 17, Lau­ren by air and Gabi by land, to par­tic­i­pate in the activ­i­ties planned by each of their respec­tive stu­dent groups. Gabi’s group, The Pres­i­den­tial Class­room con­sist­ing of 350 stu­dents, was housed in the city; Lauren’s group, The Nation­al Young Lead­ers Stu­dent Con­fer­ence con­sist­ing of 7,300 stu­dents, was housed out­side the city. 

Gabi’s agen­da includ­ed stu­dent cau­cus­es, tours to Mount Ver­non, the Jef­fer­son Memo­r­i­al and the Pen­ta­gon Memo­r­i­al, which hon­ors the 184 dead from 9/11. It also includ­ed speak­ing appear­ances by two well-known men: Dr. Ed Smith and for­mer Pres­i­dent Clin­ton. “For three days we were sur­round­ed by Secret Ser­vice agents and didn’t even know it,” she said. “It was all in prepa­ra­tion for Pres­i­dent Clin­ton.” After the inau­gu­ra­tion, a cel­e­bra­to­ry ball helped her group relax and enjoy each other’s com­pa­ny in love­ly clothes and a feel­ing of mul­ti­cul­tur­al good will.

Lauren’s agen­da was dif­fer­ent from Gabi’s. “There was less time in the class­room,” she said. There was more tour­ing: the Wash­ing­ton Mon­u­ment, Lin­coln Memo­r­i­al, Jef­fer­son Memo­r­i­al and the Cap­i­tal Build­ing. A trip down the Potomac on a din­ner cruise was an out­stand­ing moment for her. “I guess we must have been a ter­ror­ist risk, because the boat was crawl­ing with guards,” she said. Her speak­ers includ­ed such lumi­nar­ies as Col­in Pow­ell, Arch­bish­op Desmond Tutu and for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Al Gore. On the Lin­coln Memo­r­i­al steps she saw a per­for­mance that includ­ed Ste­vie Won­der, U2, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Bruce Bring­stein, WILL.I.AM, Ush­er and Bey­once. Her cel­e­bra­to­ry ball was held at the Smith­son­ian Nation­al Air and Space Muse­um where she enjoyed din­ner and was treat­ed to a per­for­mance by Daughtry.

Both girls were thor­ough­ly enter­tained by The Cap­i­tal Steps, a group who bills them­selves as  “the Wash­ing­ton-based troupe of Con­gres­sion­al staffers turned song­writ­ers. We put the MOCK in Democ­ra­cy.”  “I bought all three of their CDs,” said Gabi with a mis­chie­vous smile. 

They returned from their trip by car on Fri­day, dri­ven by Lauren’s moth­er. It was a long 10-hour trek that inched them along the clogged high­ways and bridges that Pres­i­dent Oba­ma speaks of in his plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure.