BY Nikolaj Lasbo

The Daily

Last Tuesday, after Sen. Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, I was put into an awkward position as a journalist. I was snapping pictures with the Young Democrats when Anderson Cooper announced on CNN that Obama had won. My arms felt an impulse to shoot toward the ceiling with the cheering students, but I contained myself and let a smile creep across my face. As the night wore on, culminating in a spontaneous student march on Capitol Hill, I started following more of my impulses.

In contrast to the right of freedom of association afforded to citizens, journalists must rather be free from association. This means that I shouldn’t campaign, canvass, electioneer, lobby or take part in the political process in any way that might compromise my independence as a journalist.

When I decided to join students in taking to the streets on Tuesday night, it was not as though I threw my journalistic integrity by the wayside. I took part in the march because I felt that this moment in American history was so significant; I could not afford to merely watch. I was not only celebrating Obama, but also the ideal of democracy, which includes the freedom of the press.

UW drama students were instrumental in starting the march through the University District. The students were having an election-watching party and took to the streets immediately after Obama gave his acceptance speech.

“We figured a lot of people would be out,” said Makenzie Greenblatt, a senior majoring in drama and journalism. “At first we were disappointed by how few people we ran into on the street.”

But it wasn’t hard to get people to join, she added. Pretty soon the 20 or so drama students snowballed into a couple hundred people.

“I was really shocked and flabbergasted,” Greenblatt said. “Every time I looked behind me, the crowd had grown by 10 percent.”

I joined the procession on the corner of 17th Avenue and 47th Street on Greek row, outside of the Sigma Nu fraternity. The crowd was yelling “O-ba-ma,” “Yes we can,” and “Yes we did.” Students poured out of the front doors of sororities and fraternities to watch in bathrobes and slippers or join the celebration.

We traveled to the north campus dorms and yelled up to the dormies whose heads we could see in the windows. As we left, many ran out the front doors and followed the mob to Red Square.

“I am a planner and was starting to get worried,” said Young Democrats president Alex Lark, who had joined the group in Red Square. “But it was remarkable. The whole thing was very peaceful and positive. There was no maliciousness.”

The group gathered by the George Washington statue, and students hanging from the first president of the United States led the crowd in a chorus of the “Star Spangled Banner” in celebration of the 44th president. Shouts of “speech” came from the crowd, and junior Dan Kowalczyk recited part of the Communist Manifesto to a hushed audience. The controversial literature could have distanced many in the crowd, but most of the students started laughing.

Everything came to a halt around the crowd as we snaked up the Ave. I remember seeing a man bent over a police car being arrested, but as we passed, both stopped to look up — the handcuffed man giving us a thumbs-up, and the cop allowed a smile.

“When we went up the Ave I was like ‘oh my god, we are in the road,’” sophomore drama major Max Kraushaar said. “But never have I got so many moving high-fives from people in cars.”

By the time we headed back to Red Square, our numbers had grown to what I estimated to be close to 1000.

Back on campus, the crowd began to flood inside Odegaard library. We filled the staircase, and the studiers joined in — later in the night, I saw a man with two laptop bags over his shoulders, having followed us since we entered the library. We poured out of the front doors and broke into a sprint to the steps of Suzzallo library. A flag bearer waved the stars and stripes at the top of the stairs, and fireworks exploded overhead.

“The whole thing put me in awe,” Lark said. “It was the same feeling that you get when Obama talks about hope. It was a tangible form of that.”

Continuing the spontaneity of the whole event, the crowd began to move out of Red Square and toward Capitol Hill.

“The 49 bus was stuck behind us,” said Markie Miller, a senior and drama major. “But it was going slow and didn’t pass us. I think it was trying to protect us from cars.”

Police cars led the front of the pack and followed us all the way to Broadway Avenue, where another Obama celebration was being held. What a sight we must have been, peaking over that hill on Pine Street and charging to the others who filled the intersection.

“It was a long hike but you didn’t feel it,” Lark said. “When we got there it was great to see so many other people who were feeling the same way.”

Kraushaar estimated he walked 15 miles during six hours.

“The core ideal that was motivating us was the belief that Americans can do great things,” Lark said. “If you give you will get back and that is what this election has showed us.”

From the primary battle between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Obama to the non-stop attacks between the presidential candidates, the United States hasn’t had much of a chance to rest. Tuesday night was a release for many that had watched, helped and toiled during the election process, Miller said.

“This was the first time that we’ve been able to prove what we can do,” Miller said. “People have been saying that we are the lazy generation who lives off credit cards and the Internet. But this time kids voted for themselves.”

She added that Tuesday night wasn’t the first night students got involved and acted, but it was a culmination of everything they have done recently.

“We have cared,” she said. “And we got to show it.”

Students that were in the crowd hope that the fervor of last Tuesday will continue into the future and mark a continued involvement by students in American democracy.

“Youth now have an obligation to continue giving,” Lark said. “Although we may have won the election, Obama can’t change this country alone. Tuesday night was only the first step and we must all work together and ‘be the change we wish to see,’ as Ghandi said.”

Reach reporter Nikolaj Lasbo at features@dailyuw.com.