Inaugurations: D.C’s Past, Our Nation’s Future

Acknowledging the governmental branch of the people, George Washington set the precedent of taking the oath of office before Congress in Federal Hall in then-capitol New York City in 1789. He also started the tradition of kissing the book used for the swearing-in, and though it is debated whether or not he actually said the words “So help me God” after taking the oath, many modern-day presidents have followed in his supposed footsteps.

The first presidential parade took place during Andrew Jackson’s Inauguration when the cable holding back the raucous crowd snapped and Jackson had to flee on horseback along Pennsylvania Avenue, creating an impromptu procession. Twenty thousand revelers followed Ol’ Hickory inside the White House for spiked orange punch, at least one bowl of which was spilled onto the carpet. The crowd was only ushered out of the president’s home when his steward, Antoine Michel Giusta, had the idea to put large tubs of the whiskey punch on the lawn to attract the mob outside. The parade down Pennsylvania stuck, the whiskey, however, must now be concealed in flasks or Dasani bottles.

Presidential headdresses, of all things, were also a matter of follow-the-leader. The new president customarily wore a large, black top hat, until 1961, when JFK chose to flaunt his shiny locks instead. The Ray-Bans, unfortunately, didn’t make it through to LBJ.

Although this year’s Inauguration stands apart from all others in its historical significance, it remains a ceremony steeped in tradition and memory. From the political to the provocative, a cast of characters from Georgetown and around Washington, D.C., have offered us their insights on bygone Inaugurations and what they believe Obama will bring to the District and the nation. So put on your Inauguration shoes, take a sip of your Baracktail, and dive into The Voice‘s Inauguration Issue 2009.

-Michael Keller

James White has been selling t-shirts and souvenirs on the streets of Washington, D.C., for over 16 years. As a street vendor, he has witnessed two Presidential Inaugurations from his spot nestled next to the Capitol on the corner of F and 17th Streets, N.W. As he put it, Inauguration Day is always “crazy.” “Last Inauguration, I was seeing people from Texas, people with big hats and coats, mink coats,” White said, swaddled in his own enormous jacket. “They were coming from all over. They was in town to spend money. I sold bundles and bundles of t-shirts and buttons with George W. Bush’s face on them.”

President Bush’s Inauguration provided a boom for his business, but White faced a challenge: the weather. His stall opened that morning between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. in freezing temperatures and stayed open until late that night.

“It was hella cold,” he said, “but the money was pumping. We were wearing coats, gloves, everything. It was freezing! I got sick; I was shaking. I got pneumonia. But I went home that night, I took some Theraflu, and I sweated it out. … It was cold like hell, and I was sick at the end of the day, but we made money.”

White hopes for even better sales during President-elect Obama’s Inauguration this year.

“[Business] is going to be crazy. … Before [Obama] got elected, it was going crazy. After that, it’s been getting slower, but this week we’re gonna have people from all over,” he said.

-Lillian Kaiser

THE CYNIC

While most D.C. residents and out-of-town visitors eagerly await the historical inauguration of our next president, Terrence Boyle, who has witnessed every presidential swearing-in since John Kennedy’s in 1961, greets both the incoming Commander-in-Chief and the festivities surrounding his installation into the nation’s highest office with “ho-hum” cynicism. A Georgetown alum (SFS ‘63), longtime D.C. resident, and Delta Phi Epsilon Foreign Service Fraternity National Secretary, Boyle has simply seen too many inaugurations to get riled up about this one like the rest of the city.

For starters, the speeches are usually “unmemorable,” the slightly hunched, white-haired Boyle recalled. And the numerous glamorously-billed balls? “Rip-offs for youths from the provinces,” he quipped in his typical hard-bitten, gruff manner.

“No one important would go to them.”

Boyle’s dismissal of all the inaugural pageantry stems in part from a deeply-seated skepticism of Obama’s ability to bring about the change he promised during his campaign.

“Obama will be the Bush Administration’s dream,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Nothing is going to happen [during his term].”

Like many, Boyle views Obama as a 21st century John Kennedy, sharing Kennedy’s powerful rhetorical skills and charisma, qualities that Boyle said attract “the superficial types.”  He believes the incoming president will ultimately accomplish very little. Inauguration-goers and bright-eyed Obama-ites will no doubt hope that Boyle is wrong on both counts.

-Sean Quigley

THE ARTISTS

Andrew Baughman, Producing Artistic Director of Landless Theatre, a D.C.-based company known for its tongue-in-cheek productions funded on a shoestring budget, voiced the dilemma that he and his theater peers face.

“As Artistic Director of a company of artists who thrive on creating parody and satire, I can say that we will miss the Bush Administration for the wealth of comedic material they have provided-but as an artist, I am full of hope for our future,” Baughman wrote in an e-mail.

Many are unequivocal, however, in their excitement for the Obama administration. Suzan Harjo, a Native American poet and policy advocate who served on the Native American Policy Committee for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and as an Advisor to the Transition team, compared the atmosphere surrounding President-elect Obama’s ascension to power to the feelings of humility and optimism that accompanied President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration.

“It’s just that magnitude of change,” she wrote.

Steve Lambert, owner of independent music venues the Rock and Roll Hotel, D.C.9, and the Red and the Black, anticipates that this change will benefit D.C. arts and own businesses.

“The inspiration and grass roots support that elected Barack Obama brings hope that a new round of bright, creative, innovative, and ambitious young people interested in free thinking, self-motivation, community focus, and local support will flourish into Washington, D.C., and into our clubs,” he wrote.

In the coming week Lambert’s Rock and Roll Hotel will play host to six inauguration-themed ceremonies, ranging from dance parties to concerts to an amateur female Jell-o wrestling competition dubbed the “Inaugural Brawl.” Jubilation, it seems, is poised to replace anger as the most powerful fuel for creative self-expression in the District.

-Traviss Cassidy

THE POLITICAL PRAGMATIST

As a native Washingtonian, District of Columbia Council Chairman Vincent Gray (D) has seen his fair share of Inaugurations. But nothing, he says, will compare with the upcoming one.

“This is unprecedented,” he said. “I don’t think previous routines even apply here.”

Gray’s fellow Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) agrees.

“There seems to be much more excitement about this Inauguration,” Mendelson said.

But with the added excitement come bigger crowds and logistical challenges.

“We don’t know what to expect in terms of people trying to get into the city,” Mendelson said. “There’s concern about how big the crowds will be and whether we’ll be prepared.”

One of the most controversial decisions the Council made regarding the Inauguration was to extend the hours bars will be allowed to serve alcohol, a measure that has never been taken for previous festivities surrounding presidential swearing-in ceremonies. After passing a bill that moved last call back from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. for January 17th to 21st, Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Robert Bennet (R-Utah), as well as local groups, raised objections about the disruption it would cause and the pressure it would put on police officers.

The Council later changed the limit to 4 a.m. and is requiring every establishment that will stay open late to register with the city and pay a fee.

“I think we’ve taken a responsible position,” Gray said. “Voluntary agreements [that bars have with their local Advisory Neighborhood Commissions not to stay open late] are being observed … We know every establishment that’s going to stay open late. I think certainly there will be a high concentration of law enforcement.”

As for their personal plans, both said they would be watching the parade from the District Building, a prime parade-side location. Gray said he would be stopping by two or three of the balls.

“I think most of the Council members are planning on being at the District Building, and we’re still trying to see if we have tickets for the swearing in,” Mendelson said.

-Juliana Brint

THE ACADEMIC

Though Georgetown may have a reputation for political engagement, some of the University’s most esteemed and established professors admit to engaging little with inaugural festivities in years gone by.

David Goldfrank, a professor in the History Department, has lived in the District for 38 years but has neither attended an Inauguration ceremony nor watched one on television. Goldfrank noted, however, that after the “Bush père” victory of 1989, he subversively attended an Inauguration party in order to “convince the GOP-ers that they were in danger of being too conservative,” he said.

Goldfrank’s rogue tactics continued in 2001. Despite the fact that he held a ticket for that year’s ceremony, he was too upset by the results to do anything but “take an early [7 a.m.] Metro downtown from West Falls Church, walk around to see what kind of protests might be developing, and return dejected by Metro around 10 a.m.” He spent the rest of the day performing “yard work and intellectual labor” before attending a “counter-Inaugural” with fellow 1960s activists.

Not surprisingly, Goldfrank plans to acknowledge Barack Obama’s victory in a somewhat more positive, though characteristically unconventional fashion. In keeping with the spirit of service stressed by Obama’s campaign and the Martin Luther King Day holiday on January 19th, Goldfrank is organizing a neighborhood “non-partisan food drive.”

-Chelsea Paige

THE PIOUS

Serving as the site of the Presidential Prayer Service held the day after the Inauguration, the Washington National Cathedral plays a key role in the week’s festivities-one which highlights the Cathedral’s status as the “spiritual home for the nation,” Julie Cook, Director of Visitor Programs, said.

Both Cook and Cathedral spokesperson Elizabeth Mullen see the service as a time for happiness and celebration, but it may also be seen as yet another “first” associated with the history-making incoming administration: Dr. Sharon Watkins will be the first woman to deliver the sermon at this event, Mullen wrote in an e-mail.

According to Mullen, the prayer service has been associated with the inauguration since George Washington’s first term in 1789, and it was later revived by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Washington National Cathedral has hosted the service since Ronald Reagan’s second Inauguration in 1985, she wrote.

Marc Yesberger, Director of Cathedral Services, recalled in an e-mail that President Bush’s first Inaugural Prayer Service in 2001 was “an exciting and new experience” for many of the Cathedral staff. Since then ,both Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford have died, and the Cathedral has settled into its role “as a place where the nation can celebrate and grieve together,” he wrote.

Yesberger expects an even stronger reception this year.

“The Presidential Inaugural Prayer Services for Barack Obama will be another celebration, but somehow it seems bigger, more promising, and [it] brings to light more of the energy and passion that I know so well in my colleagues,” he wrote.

-Traviss Cassidy

THE POET

“Whatever is coming is going to be big,” wrote Delrica Andrews, a slammaster in D.C.’s slam poetry scene and a District resident since birth, in an e-mail message, “[f]or not just the poetry community, but the country as a whole.”

Andrews has been involved in D.C.’s poetry scene for years, officiating and overseeing the D.C. Slam Team, in serving as a presence at most D.C. poetry events. The poets Andrews knows are “overjoyed and can’t wait to come here to help Bush pack,” she wrote. She anticipates a flood of anti-Bush inaugural poetry, culminating, perhaps, in an “incredibly passionate soliloquy that will lyrically oust him before the last word is uttered by our new President-elect.”

Andrews sees this Inauguration, like others, as a prompt for creative expression. In that respect, she feels, it is just like any other political event.

“Not to downplay the significance of President-elect Obama’s being elected,” she wrote, “but with change comes reaction … both good and bad.”

Some of that reaction may find its way into the poetry of D.C.’s writers, in a variety of ways.

“Be it fodder for their work, or praises, there is always fuel for the written word,” according to Andrews.

On a personal level, however, she is excited about the incoming administration and remains optimistic about Obama.

“I think that while there is still a vast majority of people who are skeptical,” she wrote, “people in my circle at least are ready and welcoming change, a new voice and the possibility of things hopefully getting better.”

-SHIRA HECT