On January 20th, Conrad’s Rho Kappa members went to the inauguration of our 45th president, Donald Trump.

The event was heavily secured by the military police stationed at seemingly every corner.  There were security checkpoints at the gates to each viewing section, and we ended up going through three of them; one for the viewing area, one to get to the capitol building where we got our tickets, and finally, one to enter the American history museum.

Donald spoke around 11:40 with a rifling speech about the direction he’s going to point our country.  Just before that, he gave his oath, the very same oath that George Washington stated so long ago.

We were positioned in the red view zone, which was behind the viewing pool, but we moved up to the blue zone on the side of the pool.  Our position was on Donald’s right but due to the trees there was no way we could get a good picture.  Luckily there were large screens and speakers so we could hear and see the process, but we saw just about as much of it as everyone else.

We could see the stand the newly appointed president stood at as he gave his speech, but we were too far away to make out the scene.

The crowd seemed huge while we were being split up among it, but based on reports, it was apparently a lot smaller than past elections.  I couldn’t help but notice there were so many of the famous “Make America Great Again” hats being worn, and I could only wonder how many of them were bought at the event rather than brought in.  The streets were littered with venders selling hats, and towards the end, I bought a hat myself as memorabilia of the historical event.

As we were entering the zones, it felt empty but filled in very quickly.  Leaving the event, we had to completely regroup and wait out the moving crowd. After there was a break enough to get across the street we had to maneuver ourselves around the parade, which ended up feeling like a game of Centipede.  When we escaped the parade (or so we thought), we went to visit the World War II memorial where I enlightened the students and two US history teachers on the trip about Killroy, a carving etched into the memorial as a cartoon symbol of the time period which we would now call a meme.  We tried to see the Lincoln memorial, but they were in the process of taking down the stage where very few celebrities performed the night before.  We passed by the Vietnam memorial and the constitution signature memorial, before reaching the American History museum.  We spent some time in there, and when we were done, we were ready to leave.

Unfortunately, we were caught next to the parade again. The metro station we wanted to go to was cut off due to the passing celebration, and so we ended up making about four U-turns back and forth trying unsuccessfully to out maneuver the parade.  We ended up stopping and watching the tail end of it until they let us pass.

There were tons of splintered protests throughout the day, and even during the speech, we heard someone shouting sarcastically at Trump’s remarks.  There was one group which was against violence in general, who was proudly standing next to someone where their red hat and holding a “Trump Pence” sign proclaiming to the crowd that they could stand together as equals, a powerful message to be used until the next election.  While we were eating ,two boys, who looked to be about our age, walked in; one wearing a choker collar with a chain and a Donald Trump mask, the other holding up a Vladimir Putin cutout of his head and holding the chain, both were in suits, and the scene was hysterical.  The last one I saw that day was a woman holding a sign about Trump’s “locker room” talk using vulgar language to get her point across.

Overall, the trip was wonderful.  We bonded as a group and grew to better understand the civic and political side of our organization and as citizens ourselves.  We laughed and had a splendid time cracking jokes, making friends, learning about our history, and witnessing the inauguration first hand.

Leigh Weldin, founder of Rho Kappa, comments, “Taking students to a Presidential inauguration is a highlight of my teaching career.  It is my hope that by taking part in such an historical event and being exposed to different points of view my students will  develop and deepen their understanding of citizenship and the democratic process.  It will be a field trip and experience that I will never forget.”