Thousands gather on campus to view inauguration
Students put aside their studies, meals and games — but not their opinions
By Kelin Hall
CHICAGO — Hollowed Grounds, a student-run coffee shop generally filled with chatting, studying, and pool-playing customers was hushed and empty at 10:30 AM on Tuesday. The speakers on the counter were silent, and the only four customers there sat glued to their laptops. Everyone in the Reynolds Club, the University’s primary student center, was watching the inauguration.
Over the serenade of a string quartet, a television announcer proclaimed, “Obama just became president. The Constitution states his term begins at noon, even without oath.” Applause and hollers erupted from more than 1000 University community members who filled Mandel Hall to watch the Inauguration of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States.
About 300 more students watched the ceremony in Hutch Commons, and about 30 more in the McCormick Tribune Lounge. Book bags sat untended; laptops went to sleep as their owners looked beyond their email to the screens that the University set up to project the event.
Daniel Hartsough, a first-year from Princeton, Ill., said that many skipped his morning class to watch the event live, despite the three University-sponsored re-screenings that afternoon.
Sierra Sterling, a fourth-year from Colombia, Mo., said, “Towards the end of the campaign, when it seemed like Obama was going to win, we forgot how unlikely that once seemed.”
But Beruria Steinmetz-Silber, a third-year from New York City, said that studying Dr. King put the inauguration into perspective.
“MLK dreamed of black and white people just sitting at the same table or holding hands. And now there’s an African American leading our nation. We’ve come a long way,” she said.
Beyond racial triumphs, many said that the moment signals an important turning point.
“The last two elections have been marked with discord. It’s different this time. I don’t want to say, ‘There’s hope in the air,’ but people realize that something important is happening,” said Max Working, a fourth-year from Detroit.
Students believe that the election has changed international opinions of America.
Fourth-year Susana Aguirre-Avalos, a Peruvian citizen who grew up in Eugene, said, “Obama is an inspiration, not just for our country, but for the world. He’s the voice of peace, of coming together and getting through this crisis.” She said her “aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone in Peru is watching the inauguration. Everyone all over the world.”
But some say Obama has overlooked racial and economic equity in his path to unity.
A South Side resident, Alan Thomas, called Obama a “master chess player,” and said he doesn’t set an example that lets African Americans act assertively without “playing a delicate game” of anticipating and accommodating white people’s guilt-driven fears.
Obama didn’t “talk about poverty enough in the campaign,” said Jetty-Jane Connor, a fourth-year from San Francisco. She said that stating in the inaugural address that the U.S. would work with poor countries “to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds” ignored the American neighborhoods where such work is necessary — some just blocks away from Obama’s Hyde Park residence.
Emale Gray, a fourth year from Chicago, said he feels “truly represented,” for the first time, but urged caution. “Obama is the poster child for America,” as the embodiment of ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity, he said. But “we project our own image of who we want him to be. People have to let go of the image they’ve created, and embrace what Obama is and does.”
