by Frank James and Jim Tankersley
In the early January morning's dark chill, people moved by the tens of thousands through the streets of Washington, D.C., hoping to stake out positions that would allow them a view of one of the most historic moments in the nation's 232-year existence, the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, the first African-American elected president.
The early morning crowds, bundled up against temperatures that hadn't quite yet reached 20 degrees, appeared on pace to meet expectations that perhaps two million or more would descend on downtown Washington to gather on and near the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, or along the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route, to witness something many thought they would never live to see.
The subway system which serves the Washington metropolitan area, known as the Metro, opened at 4 a.m., two hours earlier than normal, to serve the expected crush of visitors. Indeed, the first trains to reach downtown were crowded though not as densely packed as warnings from officials in the days leading to the inaugural had led many to fear.
On the trains, an air of anticipation and celebration prevailed. On one train heading into downtown Washington from the northern Virginia suburbs, whites and blacks, seniors and children, talked excitedly with each other.
"Things will never be the same," a black man from Chicago was overheard saying to a white man from Vacaville, Calif. "I was completely apathetic about politics. Hated it," the white man responded. "But Obama inspired me."
Shortly after 4 a.m. a line of would-be inauguration spectators stretched half a block down E Street. At its end was a security checkpoint, not yet open. Beyond lay the National Mall and, nearby, the route for Obama's inaugural parade.
A steady parade of people spilled out of the nearby station and marched south toward the checkpoint, past taxis delivering more revelers and vendors hawking t-shirts, calendars, newspapers and snacks.
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 security line quickly swelled to more than a block and spilled off the sidewalk.
African-Americans comprised much of the early crowd, and many of them marveled at the imminent inauguration of the country's first black president.
"He's our first - our first everything," said Jane Tillman, a 45-year-old African-American secretary from Easton, Md., who brought her 16-year-old daughter to watch the parade. "And I need to be here, to breathe the same air, just to have been here."
Turning to her daughter, Jasmine, Tillman smiled and said "She's going to tell her grand-babies she was here."
College students also turned out in force. Three of them stood near the Starbucks - two from American University in Washington and a friend who drove down from Boston University - after waking at 3 a.m. and riding the first metro in from Northwest Washington.
"It was wild," said Jared Alves, 18, an American freshman who canvassed in Northern Virginia for Obama during the general election. "I'm not even sure how we got on the train we did."
Alves and his friends - 18-year-olds Carol Foster of American and Jordan Farrer of Boston University - said they were headed for the Mall with a simple hope: to stand in sight of the Capitol, where Obama will be sworn in.
Cold aside, Farrer called the atmosphere in line "simply electric."
"This is the reason I drove all the way down here," he said, "not to really see something, but to be with people."
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