On January 17th, 2009 President-elect Barack Obama came to Baltimore!
The coldest day I’ve spent outside in Baltimore may very well have been the warmest welcome. In temperatures well below freezing thousands of people gathered to greet and listen to President-elect Barack Obama give a brief speech at the War Memorial in downtown. It was the Inaugural Whistle-Stop Tour to Baltimore.
I had to go. I had to see and be apart of the event firsthand. After muddling through crowds and metal detectors for two hours, I spent another two and a half hours standing in my spot to hear Obama speak. Bitter winds kept people’s shoulders tensed to the point of aching and strangers huddled together to get the children and older women warm. Foreign students came out completely unprepared for the cold but said how they couldn’t have missed a day like today.
The crowds were overwhelmingly Black and African-American, but you wouldn’t have seen the color of crowd at a glance. You would have seen the smiles and high spirits. I went by myself and had many short but meaningful conversations with strangers. Women from Wilmington, a man from NYC, many people from Baltimore, a student from Russia, and a young Black man behind me who couldn’t help himself from crying when Obama delivered his speech.
We laughed with stiff cheeks at the “fake-out” introductions when people other than Obama came out. The Oriole bird mascot... what were they thinking! It was hilarious. Followed by a fitness trainer trying to us warm up with exercise, which really did help. City Councilmen, Governor O’Malley, Elijah Cummings, and the Morgan State Choir came beforehand.
Around 4:30pm, the crowd comfortably pushed forward when Obama came out. Michele, Joe and Jill Biden were close behind. His speech was short and succinct. A message that America is constantly under a Revolution that all Americans need to be willing fight for... a fight to change for the better. He said,
“...the American Revolution did not end when British guns fell silent. It was never something to be won only on a battlefield or fulfilled only in our founding documents. It was not simply a struggle to break free from empire and declare independence. The American Revolution was - and remains - an ongoing struggle "in the minds and hearts of the people" to live up to our founding creed”
After six hours in the cold, I was back in my apartment drinking my third cup of hot tea and looking at my pictures. They aren’t spectacular, but they are the only pictures from that exact point of view... and I’m happy to have them.
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