Black Men Built the Capitol

The platform where Obama will be sworn in.

UPI: When Barack Obama takes the oath of office, becoming the first African-American U.S. president, he will be standing amid stonework laid by slaves.
The former Illinois senator will also appear on Inauguration Day on the National Mall , where slaves were once held in pens before going up for auction, The Boston Globe reported Sunday.

The Globe said the 200-year-old story of slavery in the nation's capital remains beneath the surface, noting there is no memorial at the spot near the Capitol where slaves were once kept and sold in a three-story building called the Yellow House.

"Many people come down to the National Mall and never realize that they are walking on the site of the slave markets," said Jesse J. Holland, author of the recent book, "Black Men Built the Capitol."

23 more days until Obama's inauguration:

Festivities surrounding the swearing-in ceremony will commence at 10 a.m. on the west front of the U.S. Capitol and will include:

• Musical Selections: The United States Marine Band, followed by The San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus
• Call to Order and Welcoming Remarks: Senator Dianne Feinstein
• Invocation: Dr. Rick Warren
• Musical Selection: Aretha Franklin
• Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will be sworn into office by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, the Honorable John Paul Stevens
• Musical Selection: John Williams, composer/arranger with Itzhak Perlman, (violin), Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet)
• President-elect Barack H. Obama will take the Oath of Office, using President Lincoln’s Inaugural Bible, administered by the Chief Justice of the United States, the Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr.
• President Obama gives his Inaugural Address
• Poem: Elizabeth Alexander
• Benediction: The Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery
• The National Anthem: The United States Navy Band “Sea Chanters”

After President Obama gives his Inaugural Address, he’ll attend a luncheon in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. The 56th Inaugural Parade will then make its way down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House with groups traveling from all over the country to participate. Later that day, the Presidential Inaugural Committee will host ten official Inaugural Balls.

Full Inauguration Schedule Jan. 20

For the Swearing-In Ceremony, security checkpoints will open for ticketed guests at 8:00 am and the musical prelude begins at 10 am. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies advises arriving no later than 9:00 am to ensure that you are through the checkpoints by the time the program begins. Screening will end when the program begins at 11:30 am and late arrivals will not be able to enter the grounds.

Ticket holders should walk or use Metro due to road closures and restricted access around the US Capitol.
Read the bios of the performers here. Official inauguration site here.

The order of the day's events:

Musical Selections
The United States Marine Band

Musical Selections
The San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus

Call to Order and Welcoming Remarks
The Honorable Dianne Feinstein

Invocation
Dr. Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA

Musical Selection
Aretha Franklin

Oath of Office Administered to Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
By Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
The Honorable John Paul Stevens

Musical Selection, John Williams, composer/arranger
Itzhak Perlman, Violin
Yo-Yo Ma, Cello
Gabriela Montero, Piano
Anthony McGill, Clarinet

Oath of Office Administered to President-elect Barack H. Obama
By the Chief Justice of the United States
The Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr.

Inaugural Address
The President of the United States, The Honorable Barack H. Obama

Poem
Elizabeth Alexander

Benediction
The Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery

The National Anthem
The United States Navy Band “Sea Chanters”

After President Obama gives his Inaugural Address, he will escort outgoing President George W. Bush to a departure ceremony before attending a luncheon in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. The 56th Inaugural Parade will then make its way down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House with groups traveling from all over the country to participate.

Later that day, the Presidential Inaugural Committee will host ten official Inaugural Balls. More details about the Inaugural Balls will be released at a later date.

Inaugural Poet Elizabeth Alexander

Update 1-20 Transcript/video of Alexander's poem.
Elizabeth Alexander studied under poet Derek Walcott, apparently a favorite Obama's. Here is her website. Read some of her poems.

WaPo: Next month, the little girl, Elizabeth Alexander, now 46, a prize-winning poet and professor of African American studies at Yale University, is scheduled to stand at the other end of the Mall before what will probably be an even bigger throng and read a poem at the inauguration of the nation's first African American president.

They are two moments in Washington history, more than four decades and about two miles apart, that on Jan. 20 will bracket a part of one poet's life, along with a chapter in the country's narrative.

"It was one of the iconic stories of my childhood," Alexander said yesterday of her attendance at the March on Washington. She said of her duty next month: "It will be hard, but it will be a privilege."

Alexander, who grew up in Washington and attended Sidwell Friends School, was named by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies as the poet to read at the swearing-in.

Other performers at the inauguration:

Alexander will join soul singer Aretha Franklin, civil rights figure Joseph E. Lowery and classical musicians Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero and Anthony McGill on the program.

She will be only the fourth poet to read at a swearing-in, after Frost, who read at John F. Kennedy's in 1961, Maya Angelou, who read at Bill Clinton's in 1993, and Miller Williams, who read at Clinton's second inauguration in 1997, according to government officials.

Alexander's bio at Poets.com:

Elizabeth Alexander was born in 1962 in Harlem, New York, and grew up in Washington, D.C. She received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Boston University (where she studied with Derek Walcott), and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her collections of poetry include American Sublime (Graywolf Press, 2005), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Antebellum Dream Book (2001); Body of Life (1996); and The Venus Hottentot (1990).

Alexander’s critical work appears in her essay collection, The Black Interior (Graywolf, 2004). She also edited The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks (Graywolf, 2005) and Love’s Instruments: Poems by Melvin Dixon (1995). Her poems, short stories, and critical writing have been widely published in such journals and periodicals as The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Callaloo, The Village Voice, The Women's Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Her work has been anthologized in over twenty collections, and in May of 1996, her verse play, Diva Studies, premiered at the Yale School of Drama.