On a rainbow flight to the Obama inauguration

I am in Washington DC amid the build-up to Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th president of the United States.

The excitement on the plane over was palpable – this was Flight Obama if there was one. Flights to Washington are normally prosaic affairs: businessmen, lobbyists, diplomatic families. But this one was a veritable rainbow flight.

There was an Afro-Caribbean family of three adult sisters, one of whom had her 14-year-old daughter with her. Mum works for an energy company that she says has just won a contract to exploit a vast gas field in the Kazak end of the Caspian sea. Next to me, a tall 28-year-old black Texan woman who has lived in the UK for eight years. She’s a headhunter. There’s a small white couple from Cardiff and two old Indian ladies.

Every one of them was on board to be “part of history”. They all spoke of hope and of having been deeply uplifted by Barack Obama. In all, I suppose there were 80 or 90 black Britons on this flight, and many other ethnicities beside, bound by a single-minded desire to brave the cold and join the throng, “even if we never see a thing”. Normally there would be less than a handful of black people on the BA 276 into Washington Dulles.

“D’you know any parties?” an Anglo-Nigerian asked me. His mate giggled in the aisle. “Can I have your autograph?” There was a freedom and ease on the plane, and, yes, happiness. People talked to people they would rarely venture to. The plane was an hour late taking off but nobody minded.

And on the baggage carousel next to us at Dulles airport I noticed the Virgin flight had even more black people on it – maybe more than half of the 400 passengers.