16 January 2009
Inaugural Parade Will Present a Mosaic of America
More than 90 groups and bands will march in 56th inaugural parade
Washington — In 1905, the great Chiricahua Apache chief Geronimo and the chiefs of five other American Indian tribes, all in full regalia, passed President Teddy Roosevelt’s reviewing stand on their horses during his inaugural parade. They turned and waved to the president, “uttering whoops as they did so,” the New York Times observed at the time.
Those in the presidential box came to their feet and the crowds along the parade route cheered as the chiefs passed by, according to an exhibit — “They Came as Sovereign Leaders” — at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.
More than 100 years later, during the inaugural parade for President Barack Obama on January 20, American Indians will be represented by the Crow Nation of Montana Horse Mounted Unit and four other groups of indigenous North American peoples. They will be part of a pageant that reflects America’s history and diversity.
“The inaugural parade is a celebration of America,” says Emmett Beliveau, executive director of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, “and we are working to make sure that as many citizens as possible can take part in this historic tradition.”
RICH MIX OF PARTICIPANTS
More than 90 music, cultural and community groups were chosen from nearly 1,400 that applied to march in the 56th inaugural parade. Coming from as close as Washington itself and as far away as Barrow, Alaska, they represent the American mosaic of cultures, races and ethnicities.
These groups and others representing the armed forces will proceed along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, following the new president. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter walked the entire distance, but for security reasons, recent presidents have walked only part of the way. President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will enjoy the rest of the parade from a reviewing stand with their families.
For every inauguration, the city government paints a blue line down the middle of the 2.7-kilometer (1.7-mile) parade route to help keep the 13,000 marchers from going astray. Hundreds of thousands of people will stand along the route and watch the parade for free, while 5,000 will sit in bleacher seats secured by $25 tickets, all of which sold within one minute of being offered online January 9.
The parade will include a company of black Civil War re-enactors, Chinese dragon dancers, U.S. astronauts and a lunar rover, Tuskegee Airmen, and the Suurimmaanitchuat Eskimo Dance Group. (See “Obama Inauguration Will Honor Black Civil War Volunteers“ and “World War II African-American Airmen Receive Congressional Medal.”)
There are plenty of school bands and drill teams. One group comes from Dunbar High School in Washington, which bills itself as the nation’s first secondary school for black students. Several bands represent historically black colleges, such as Grambling State University in Louisiana and Florida A&M. Marching to a very different beat will be the Espanola Valley High School Mariachi Band from New Mexico, and Hawaii is sending a band from Punahou School, from which Obama graduated.
In keeping with Obama’s focus on community service, the parade will include groups from the Special Olympics, the Peace Corps, and programs such as the Jesse White Tumbling Team, a Chicago-based delinquency-prevention program, and the McCrossan Boys Ranch in South Dakota.
The president and vice president also will review the maneuvers of the World Famous Lawn Rangers, a precision drill team from Illinois that performs with lawn mowers.
HISTORY OF THE INAUGURAL PARADE
In the nation’s early years, militia and citizens tagged along as the president-elect made his way to the swearing-in ceremony, but it was not until the presidency of James Madison in 1809 that there was an organized inaugural parade. Madison reviewed nine companies of militia; by William Henry Harrison’s inauguration in 1841, the parade featured floats, citizens’ clubs and groups of college students.
In President Lincoln’s 1865 inauguration, African Americans participated in the parade for the first time, but women didn’t get to participate until Woodrow Wilson’s second inauguration in 1917.
Movie cameras first appeared at William McKinley’s inaugural parade in 1897. The first parade to be broadcast on television was Harry Truman’s in 1949, and the first broadcast on the Internet was Bill Clinton’s in 1997.
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding became the first president to use an automobile in the parade; in 1965 President Lyndon Johnson was the first to ride in a bullet-proof limousine.
In recent decades, more attention has been paid to the needs of the disabled. Handicapped-accessible parade viewing was first offered for Jimmy Carter’s inaugural parade in 1977; close-captioned television broadcasts for the hearing impaired appeared in 1981 for Ronald Reagan’s first inauguration.
Parades are seldom cancelled. In 1985, at Reagan’s second inauguration, the coldest temperatures in inaugural history forced the parade’s cancellation, and there was no parade for Franklin Roosevelt’s fourth inauguration in 1945 because of wartime gas rationing and lumber shortages.
The largest parade, lasting four and a half hours, was held for Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 inauguration. Today, the limit is set at 15,000 participants to keep the parade’s duration to a more reasonable length.
