It almost didn’t happen. I was first denied press credentials on the grounds that The Temple News is too irrelevant to the event. By sheer luck, I obtained credentials from a small media group, but then had them revoked because too many media outlets were already set to flood the National Mall. Amtrak ticket prices for the weekend of the inauguration were astronomical, so I turned to the Chinatown Bus. Three hours, one rest top and a Metro ride later, I made it to Washington, D.C.’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood, home of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument.


Monday was a day of preparation for the district. Streets were blocked off, parties were planned, and temporary fences were set up along the sidewalks to create paths for pedestrian traffic. Union Station was thick with tourists forming a line outside McDonald’s just to grab something to eat. The wait for a table at a Capitol Hill

Tuesday saw an early start, and the morning sun only felt warm for about 20 minutes. Not even the millions of people surrounding the historic landmarks could take the bite out of the unforgiving winds of the frozen Potomac River. Armed with four shirts and two pairs of gloves under my winter coat, I stood freezing and shaking as I filmed President Obama’s loyal supporters waving flags, wearing pins and everything else Obama. They didn’t seem to feel the cold. Only when Obama stood to take his oath of office did the crowd stop — in speech and movement. At 12:04 p.m., I took a shaky video of a crowd full of millions of silent, still people.



—By Shannon McDonald, managing editor of The Temple News and a senior journalism major at the School of Communications and Theater