A slightly different inaugural story
By Philip Zakahi
Heath first asked me to write this column Monday afternoon. I accepted the offer, assuming I would be writing about my impression of the inauguration ceremony itself. Little did I know I would be a participant in the “Purple Ticket Fiasco,” spending just under five hours in the I-395 3rd Street Tunnel — “The Purple Tunnel of Doom” — a four lane, 0.75-mile tunnel traveling under the National Mall.
I think I should preface this by noting that, unlike almost all of the people I was in the tunnel with, I got in to the ceremony. Having given up hope of getting in, and with only a few minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin, I found myself among a few hundred purple ticket holders who, for no other reason than being in the right place at the right time, the Secret Service and capitol police saw fit to take pity on. I enjoyed the ceremony; although I still feel guilty about getting in while a large number of people I spent hours in a tunnel with did not. And, at the end of the day, I left the ceremony with a renewed sense of optimism for the future of humanity, not because of the words of President Obama as he stood on the mall, but because of the actions of thousands of people trapped under the mall.
I fear I cannot speak with certainty about anything which I have not witnessed; there are a number of different stories about how thousands of people who held purple tickets were prevented from getting onto the capital grounds to witness the inauguration, despite having arrived hours ahead of time, tickets in hand. I can, however, walk you through my experience, and explain to you how the kindness and caring I saw, among people whom I fully expected to display neither, has given me hope.
A line that wasn’t moving
I received a pair of color-coded tickets — in my case purple tickets — to Tuesday’s Inaugural ceremony last week from Congressman Teague. I made preparations to go downtown late Monday night, and when my alarm went off at 4:30 on Tuesday morning, I must admit I had already been up for some time, giddy with excitement for the coming day. I made my way downtown, and after some slight confusion as to the exact location of the purple ticket entrance, I arrived at my destination a few minutes after 6 a.m. At this point, two hours before gates were to open and nearly six hours before the ceremony itself, the line was already well formed and being directed by capitol police down the 3rd Street Tunnel.
After walking a couple hundred yards into the tunnel, a friend and I proceeded to wait in line. At this point we were eager for the two hours to pass before the gates would be opened and we would be allowed to enter the mall. It was cold — close to 20 degrees, according to Google before I left home — but we passed the time by chatting with a couple from Virginia who stood behind us in line. As we waited, people continued to join the line, and before long we could no longer see its end.
Sure enough, after two hours the line began to move — not really, but every 10-15 minutes we would get to walk about 20 feet forward, and as we walked people poured down the other side of the tunnel to the back of the line. This continued for the next hour or so, but we quickly realized that our forward progress was simply due to the line expanding to fill the width of the four-lane tunnel. By 10 a.m. (four hours in) the line had expanded to completely fill the width of the tunnel, in either direction, as far as the eye could see (I have now seen a number of photographs which show this line continuing all the way to the other side of the 0.75-mile tunnel).
A dangerous situation
While we still held out hope, it was about this time that we realized we were not going to get into the ceremony. It was also about this time that we began to worry — we were now trapped in the tunnel, there was no way out in any direction, save for the sunlight marking the exit a few hundred yards ahead. We were, and everyone else was, completely surrounded by people.
In addition, for the four hours we had been down there we had no contact with police or other emergency personnel, and there were no bathrooms, no food, and no water. If someone became ill there was no way out. Most of all, we feared that we were not the only people realizing the odds of entrance to the ceremony were quickly dissipating.
I was quite convinced this was the most dangerous situation in which I had ever found myself.
A mass decision to work together
It was also about this time, however, that I noticed a shift in the mood of the crowd, for the better. Perhaps realizing the seriousness of the situation, complaints about the cold and people cutting in line were quickly replaced with sarcastic jokes about the stupid tunnel. Perhaps most interesting, however, was the singing. People who must have now known they would not get to see the moment they had been waiting for were singing “God Bless America,” “The Star Spangled Banner” and, of course, given our close proximity to one another, “Lean on Me.” I reached the sunlight just after 11 a.m. From there we quickly realized that we had not slowly been moving forward as people were let into the ceremony, but had simply been waiting for the people in front of us to give up on getting in.
Despite my fears, no one was trampled, there were no stampedes, and I witnessed no fights. Instead, thousands of people braved their hardship together and simply waited to be freed. What I have so often doubted humanity was truly capable of — a mass decision to work together for the common good — happened before my eyes on Tuesday and it, not President Obama’s speech, restored my optimism for the future.
Zakahi is a 2006 Las Cruces High School graduate, a student at American University and a Democratic campaign operative currently with Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research in Washington, D.C.