I had the privilege of going to D.C. yesterday to witness the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Instead of rehashing the details of his speech, as many have done already, I want to talk about something I think the media has not emphasized enough: the crowd.
Yes, there were a lot of African Americans at the Mall yesterday. Many more, I'm sure, than had been at any other inauguration. The population of the District of Columbia is more than 56% Black, and yet often times when we look at pictures of past inaugurations the crowd is the whitest crowd imaginable.
But honestly, what struck me most was not just the racial diversity, but all of the diversity of the crowd - age, geographic region, socioeconomic status. There were hipsters from Brooklyn and evangelicals from South Carolina (and neither group was protesting). There were five year olds in school groups and seventy five year olds in wheelchairs. There were people with $5 disposable cameras and people with $5000 video recorders.
As I looked out into the sea of people, I really appreciated Obama's unprecedented ability to bring people together. There were so many people at this inauguration that had not been at any inauguration before (myself included). There were many, many people in the crowd that booed when Bush came out from the Capital, but there were also many people that shouted "give the guy a break" and told people to be quiet - this feeling of compassion is something Obama seemed to encourage.
There was an incredible feeling of hope in Washington yesterday. Obama has a hard road ahead of him, but he had 2 million freezing people at his inauguration yesterday - that has to count for something.
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