For me though, the most amazing example of this crowd’s nature took place no where near the event. My wife and I were among thousands who did not make it to the Mall on time due to horrific infrastructure congestion. We stayed at a hotel that would have, on any other day, been an hour outside of town. We drove to the Vienna-Fairfax Metro station, the end of the Orange Line, where we took our place in a quarter-mile long file of people waiting to board a train to downtown. The ticketing for the Metro is primarily automated and by no means user friendly. As a result, the crowd watched helplessly as near-empty trains pulled away from the platform because people could not obtain tickets quickly enough to board them.
As best I could tell, I was the only person incensed by this predicament. Those around me spoke graciously of the honor to meet each other and share the experience of trying to get to the event. “We’ll just watch it on YouTube” was a common refrain.
The gathering of any number of people so meek, yet determined to affect productive change in themselves and their community, is miraculous. As we walked from Foggy Bottom station toward the Lincoln Memorial, a steady stream of hundreds were heading away from the event opposite our path. As a result, whatever the final estimate of attendance may be, you can be sure the true number was greater. Accounting for the untold number who were not able to reach the Mall on-time, and those who left for various reasons during the program, there was never a point at which every person who had traveled to Washington for the event was present on the Mall.
Regardless of the final count, the mood of those in the crowd – who Freeman called “happy warriors” – was highly contiguous. As they had at the hotel where Tea Party Patriots gathered the night before, members of the Teamsters National Black Caucus were docile as they weaved among the Restoring Honor faithful. So-called counter-protests were both orderly and ignored. After the hype of “a pit of hatred,” the reality of 8/28 was a testament to the power of faith over cynicism.
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Walter Hudson is a political commentator, activist, and Tea Party coordinator from the Twin Cities. He runs a blog and internet radio show, both entitled Fightin Words. He also contributes to True North, a hub of Minnesotan conservative commentary. Follow his work via Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
