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The article reports on the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. It shows that an estimated 800,000 to one million people packed the National Mall outside the U.S. Capitol to witness the public swearing-in of the nation's first African American president. In addition, the crowd was politically minded, reflecting on and then discussing the political speeches rather than celebrating the event.

Photographs are presented of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. during the inauguration of President Donald Trump on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama on January 20, 2009.

There are unsettling ghosts of America past all about the National Mall. Hundreds of thousands of people will gather there Tuesday for the inauguration of the nation's first African-American president. Three blocks from where Barack Obama takes the oath, there was once the Saint Charles Hotel, a popular accommodation on Pennsylvania Avenue before emancipation ruined business for slave traders. It proudly advertised that down below its first-rate restaurant, guests could avail themselves of six, 30-foot-long arched slave cells, replete with wall rings and shackles. The management promised: ''In case of escape, full value for the Negro will be paid.'' A few blocks from there was the notorious Yellow House, a three-story brick slave market where trader William Williams prospered enough to purchase two slave ships of his own. Solomon Northrup, a free man from New York who was kidnapped into slavery, passed through on the block and eventually wrote a memoir. He recalled how ''the voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality,'' in the nearby Capitol almost commingled with ''the rattling of the poor slave's chains.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SOME Long Islanders are taking the plunge, heading to the National Mall in Washington to see Barack Obama's inauguration in person with a couple million of their fellow citizens. Others are just celebrating with loved ones in front of the TV on Tuesday. But even some of the stay-at-homes are breaking out black tie and evening gowns for their living-room parties, intending to match the grandeur of the moment with formal wear and Champagne. In dozens of interviews, people across the Island said they were planning to celebrate the inauguration in the biggest way possible, given the realities of hard economic times and the expected crush at the capital. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]