Youth awakening at inauguration

by Jim Tankersley

When the bars closed in Washington and the trains revved up and night slipped into early morning, two groups of people stood giddy and shivering together, in a line to claim spots on the National Mall and the inaugural parade route.

There were African-Americans, marking a climax in a centuries-long struggle. And there were young people, less noticed by the cameras and the pundits, come to celebrate an awakening that roused their parents and grandparents long ago but had eluded them until now.

Theirs is a video-game generation, younger cousins to a video-music generation. They were glimmers of thoughts, at best, when assassins felled JFK and RFK. Their formative political memories include hanging chads, collapsing trade towers and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

They have never sweated out a military draft. They did not, in any grand numbers, volunteer to fight after terrorists struck their land on Sept. 11, 2001. Their political leaders did not, in loud voices, call on them to sacrifice and serve.

But in this campaign, Barack Obama called, and they answered in numbers not seen since in nearly 40 years. Americans 30 and younger voted - a feat in itself - and overwhelmingly so, for the first presidential candidate to engage them technologically and motivate them to think and act beyond their own Facebook worlds.

Carol Foster felt Obama's "ability to inspire," as she called it, during the Democratic primaries. Her friend Jordan Farrer felt it even earlier, watching the then-Senate candidate's speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004. "I knew it from the beginning," Farrer said.

On Tuesday morning, they and a third friend, Jared Alves, woke at 3 a.m. to catch the first train in from Northwest Washington, where Alves and Foster are freshmen at American University. Farrer, a freshman at Boston University, had driven down to stay with them last weekend.

At 4:30 a.m., the three 18-year-olds bounced red-faced in the 10-degree wind chill downtown. Around them, some of their peers wore dreadlocks, some goatees, some designer wool coats and Burberry scarves.

Some smoked cigarettes and cursed the cold. Some guzzled coffee from the Starbucks on the corner. Some chanted, some cheered, some snapped pictures or filmed one another with camcorders, their narration occasionally lost in the blare of sirens as police cars whizzed by.

The trio of friends befriended a nearby t-shirt vendor and marveled that they made it to this security checkpoint. "I'm not even sure how we got on the train we did," Alves said. Farrer said their goal was to stand in sight of the Capitol, where Obama will be sworn in, even if they couldn't make out his face.

"This is the reason I drove all the way down here," he said, "not to really see something, but to be with people."

It was an experience, they all agreed - echoing so many others, of so many ages, in the inaugural crowds - that they looked forward to sharing with grandchildren some day.

Grandchildren who, for whatever sacrifices they may face, will know no reason why a black man can't be president.

jtankersley@tribune.com