From the avenue in Atlanta where civil rights leader the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was born to a giant lakefront rally in Chicago, Americans black and white celebrated Barack Obama’s election with tears, the honking of horns, screams of joy, arms lifted skyward — and memories of civil rights struggles past.
Tens of thousands of people who had crowded into Grant Park in Chicago to await Obama’s arrival erupted in cheers and jubilantly waved American flags as the TV news announced the Illinois senator had been elected the first black president. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, who had made two White House bids himself, had tears streaming down his face.
Gatherings in churches and homes spilled outdoors, with people dancing in the streets and honking their horns in celebration.
Some didn’t even wait for Obama to be declared the winner.
In Philadelphia, Michael Coard, a 43-year-old black lawyer, said he was so excited by the election that he took a picture of himself inside the voting booth, casting his vote for Obama.
“I feel rejuvenated,” he said. “This is the best vote I’ve ever cast in my life.”
In Tampa, Florida, cheers and applause broke out in a crowded bar as CNN called the race for Obama. The blare of cars honking outside wafted through the bar’s open front door.
“It’s a landslide! It’s a landslide!” shouted 51-year-old Mark Bias, who was dressed in a tall satin Uncle Sam hat and red, white and blue cape.
“This means that America will be back on the right track again,” said Bias, who co-owns what he described as a “gay pride” shop.
“What it really means for the country is that there’s going to be a major change in the direction ... [for] the priorities of the regular person, and not just the wealthy,” said Carrie West, 54, as bar patrons chanted “O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma.”
At Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King preached, Representative John Lewis, a civil rights hero, was emotional as he took the pulpit before Obama’s victory was announced.
He said he was hardly able to believe that 40 years after he was left beaten and bloody on an Alabama bridge as he marched for the right for blacks to vote, he had voted for Obama.
“This is a great night,” he said. “It is an unbelievable night. It is a night of thanksgiving.”
As the news of a projected Obama victory flashed across the screen, men pumped their fists and bowed the heads.
Women wept as they embraced their children, and many in the crowd high-fived and raised their arms skyward.
Screams of “Thank you, Lord” were heard throughout the sanctuary as the Reverend Al Sharpton took the stage with his arms raised in victory.
“At this hour, many of us never, ever, even until the last days, felt that we would ever see this,” he told the cheering crowd. “We are grateful to those who paid the price.”
The audience joined hands as the Reverend Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer led a prayer for the president-elect before singing Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing, which is regarded as the black national anthem.
“Sisters and brothers, it looks like we have moved from Bloody Sunday to Triumphant Tuesday,” Warnock said, referring to the Alabama march led by Lewis that was violently suppressed but sparked support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “It’s morning in America.”
Martin Luther King III told the crowd that history was being made.
“Our father used to say that a voteless people is a powerless people,” he said. “Something different happened in this election cycle.”
Between speakers, the audience watched TV on large screens at the front of the sanctuary and clapped and sang hymns with the choir.
Surveying the scene, Mattie Bridgewater whispered quietly from her seat, “I just can’t believe it. Not in my lifetime.” Bridgewater said she went to the same elementary school as Emmett Till, the boy from Chicago whose murder in Mississippi was one of the catalysts of the civil rights movement. Both she and her 92-year-old mother, who still lives in Chicago, voted for Obama.
“I’m sitting here in awe,” she said. “This is a moment in history that I just thank my God I was allowed to live long enough to see. Now, when I tell my students they can be anything they want to be, that includes president of the United States.”
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