When the election ended on the night of Nov. 4, NCSU students celebrated Barack Obama’s victory from the Brickyard to the Players’ Retreat to the streets of downtown Raleigh. However, one State alumnus, Matt Huffman, had another idea.
He went for a long bike ride.
“I just felt like I needed some time to absorb such a historic moment for our nation,” he said recently. On that ride, he struggled for ways to harness the energy and momentum from the election into something that would last longer than the typical election season.
One idea took hold: a long bike journey from Raleigh to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration. Huffman started planning the arduous route through the rural towns of North Carolina to the lowlands of Virginia. He decided on a four-day, 300-mile trek that would give them places to stay in South Hill, Midlothian and Fredericksburg, Va. on their way to the district.
As he told people about his plan, several more expressed interest in joining. Darryl Jones, an NCSU alumnus in landscape architecture, and Matt Watts, a junior in food science, decided to come along as well.
The group decided to raise money for their ride through sponsorships for the International Rescue Committee, a food-and-medicine charity that assists developing countries worldwide.
In addition to the crew of riders, a group of volunteers gave of their time as well. Scott Heath, a senior in engineering and Cory Livengood, an alumnus in Film Studies, decided to document the ride while driving a support car along the route. Andi Shelton, a local Raleigh woman, offered to help out with fundraising.
As the group prepared to leave early in the morning Jan. 15, family and friends weren’t the only ones who’d heard about the ride. Several news outlets arrived to cover their departure as the group rode north out of town.
By the time the group got into the middle of its ride, word had spread even further. CNN called to set up an interview with the three riders and Dateline NBC expressed interested in getting some footage for their show before the inauguration.
On the morning of Jan.18, having left Fredericksburg before dawn, the group rode up the icy Potomac River to the Lincoln Memorial for the concert that would kick off the inauguration festivities. “We were much faster on our last day,” Huffman said, “But there’s nothing like the thought of U2, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder performing to get you pedaling faster.”
The magic of a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial though, was nothing compared to the sheer drama of being present near the steps of the Capitol for the inauguration. The three riders reported what everyone else had already told: a monumental mass of people all awaiting the chance to see the nation accept the first African-American president. “A spectacular day for our nation became that much more real to us because of the sacrifice we had made to be there,” Huffman said.
“When we began, I don’t think we’d realized just what a chord this had struck with people, but there was such a good response to our fundraising, to our aims and to our ride,” Huffman said.
In a way, everyone involved with the ride traced it back to what they learned while at N.C. State. “The idea of being able to work hard, to plan something so special and see it come to fruition just reminded me of what it meant to be a part of N.C. State’s family,” Huffman said.
These riders found something valuable. They found that sacrifice is never easy. But importantly, they found that when you’re trying to change the paradigm of transportation, that change can only begin with us.
