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The last of the 800 students sat down just as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appeared from the doorway of the Capitol with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. For the next hour the large group of usually talkative teens sat transfixed and witnessed the country's greatest strength first hand, the orderly transition of power. Democracy in action live on a big screen in your local auditorium.
The students were still as Obama was introduced. When he stepped out of the shadows and into the sunshine a slow, continuous round of applause was heard in the room rolling from one side to the other. The applause gained strength as the camera focused on the profile of the soon-to-be 44th president of the United States.
The ninth-grade students of High School West held their own mock presidential election last fall. Obama won that race just as he won the real election, handily. Now the election results would be confirmed for all to see as he took the oath of office as the leader of the free world.
Quietly and with almost a embarrassed interest the students, as one, watched as prayers were read, music performed, and oaths taken in front of a crowd of two million. When a young girl on the Washington, D.C. mall widened her eyes upon seeing herself on TV her counterparts in the auditorium chuckled knowingly.
When one of the many TV cameras found Oprah Winfrey and her partner Stedman a murmur of acknowledgment of her celebrity raced through the auditorium. The event was indeed special.
But mostly the students listened. When President Obama gave his inaugural speech the packed room was quiet. They had studied Washington's and vaguely recalled Lincoln's. After Obama mentioned the now former President George W. Bush a small polite round of applause sprang from the group.
The students heard the new president speak of past oaths of office that had been given during "gathering clouds and raging storms." They heard him describe the country's predicament of war coupled with economic problems, and "a grieved crisis of irresponsibility."
The teens may have missed Obama's reference to them when he said there is a nagging fear that the next generation must lower its sights. But he quickly pushed aside those fears saying, "Hope over fear, unity over discord. America remains greater than the sum of our differences. Our patchwork heritage is not our weakness. It is our strength."
They listened and laughed as one last prayer was given. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a long time friend of Martin Luther King's, concluded his benediction with a rhyming couplet straight out of 1950s segregated America. The words were changed to reflect the historic occasion.
"If you're brown, stick around," Lowery said. "If you're red, you can be the head. And if you're white do right."
Two ninth-graders who watched the events from the comfort of the school auditorium were Annabel Brown and Eric Wales. Both said they felt they had witnessed a unique historical event. However, Brown noted that the two million people on the nation's mall had a special advantage despite the poor views. "If you're there you can always tell people, forever, I saw it with my own eyes," she said. "You can tell your grandchildren your were there."
Wales found the event special because the election of Obama says something about the country. "If we can elect a person like him president it shows we are able to put aside our petty differences and unite as a nation," he said. "A hundred years ago if someone like that tried to do it he'd have been lynched."
Brown was even more direct. "I don't think this could have happened 40 years ago," she said.
When discussing specifics about the inaugural address Wales recalled the president's remarks about hard working families who find ways to do things that benefit the country. Brown was more taken by the tone of the speech.
"He made people confident because of the way he addressed them," she said. "He told them we're in tough times, but we're going to get through them."
High School West Associate Principal Dorothy Donlon said planning for the assembly began in December. "It's part technology and part that we now have our own separate schedule," she said. "We're unique in that we have just one grade in the building so we can do something like this and not leave anyone out. We were lucky too. Our 50-year-old speakers held up."
