Obama told a story about America at his first inauguration 15 years ago. These people were there, and they still believe

CNN —

Elizabeth Alexander was in her hotel room in Washington, DC, one frigid winter morning when she was awakened by a strange noise outside her window. She peered outside and saw a sea of people, bundled against the cold, walking in the predawn darkness towards the National Mall.

It was January 20, 2009, and the crowds were on their way to witness the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, the nation’s first Black president. The sound she heard was their footsteps, marching almost in unison as their numbers grew, which sounded to Alexander like the “growing rumble of thunder or a crashing wave.”

Alexander had a coveted hotel room near the Mall that day because she was a special guest of Obama’s. He had asked Alexander, an author and poet who was then a professor at Yale University, to compose and recite a poem for his inaugural. Upon reaching the inaugural platform, Alexander saw she was sharing the stage with dignitaries such as boxing legend Muhammad Ali, singer Aretha Franklin, author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, civil rights icon John Lewis and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

When she stepped to the podium to speak, the temperature was around 30 degrees and the skies were clear and breezy. She began reciting her poem, “Praise Song for the Day,” an exhortation to “Sing the names of the dead who brought us here … who picked the cotton and lettuce.”

And as she gazed out at the crowd of at least a million people gathered before her, Alexander saw something that was as inspiring as any poetic flourish she could conjure for the occasion.

“When I looked out to the sheer infinity of people, it was a crowd to the naked eye without end,” she says today. “It was hugely multicultural. It went across