Today, President Barack Obama arrived to the Anacostia Library on Good Hope Road with little fanfare.
According to the Washington Post, President Obama’s trip to the library was to announce a digital donation to access to over 10,000 popular titles on behalf of nine major publishing houses.
The President went on to say,
“For a lot of people, if they live in a home where they don’t have a lot of books, books can be expensive. Your parents may not be able to afford to buy a whole lot of books,” said Obama, sitting on a stool surrounded by 40 wide-eyed middle school students. “But if we are able to set up . . . a way in which people can pull all of these books down through the Internet, suddenly that can even things out between poor kids and rich kids — everybody has got the ability to learn.”
His visit was kept quiet for the most part. Some people walking by wondered what all the commotion was about, and were genuinely shocked to find out that the President was in the neighborhood! Residents say security vehicles began showing up around 9:30am. I arrived around 11:15am and his motorcade had already gone by at 11:00am. Onlookers lining Good Hope Road told me he entered through the back of the library, so they hadn’t seen him go inside the building.
There were surprisingly few onlookers. Residents from the apartment buildings across the street from the library made up the majority of the crowd of 40-50 people. Many were snapping pictures of the heavy security detail with their cell phones. They told me officials had been by the evening before securing the area for the President’s visit. One man told me, that residents who lived behind the library, where the President entered, had been questioned by the President’s security staff in preparation for his visit. There were quite a few neighbors chatting with one another but other than that, the entire scene was calm and quiet.
For the most part, the perimeter, remained surprisingly small. As onlookers, we were all standing just on the other side of the street from the library. The streets were only blocked off one block in any direction. That’s much closer than when he’s in the White House. One could hardly tell that the leader of our country was sitting inside the building across the street!
When I left at 11:50am, the President had not left the library yet. I hope for those people who were waiting see him, they were able to catch a glimpse of him. It’s an exciting to be so close to the President of the United States, and it’s even more exciting when he comes your neighborhood.
