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"There is not a Black America and a White America….there's the United States of America." |
A couple of years ago Barack Obama was just a junior senator of the Democratic Party. Today he wrote a new chapter in the history of the United States by becoming the first-ever African American occupant of the White House.
It was no easy task going from that to this.
When the race for the Democratic Party president ticket began, Senator Hillary Clinton was not just the front-runner but the presumptive nominee.
She had the money and the Party establishment, being a former first lady and wife of arguably one of America's most loved and respected presidents, Bill Clinton.
She had a long history of public service and an unmatched seniority within the Democratic Party and the Senate.
The young, charismatic Illinois senator also had to steer his ship through some tough storms.
Obama's middle name, Hussein, and a picture of him in a traditional Somali garb during a visit to his father's homeland Kenya in 2006 stoke the "Obama is a Muslim" flames.
For weeks, he had to put up with news reports and rival remarks of being a Muslim in disguise.
Obama is the son of a Muslim-turned-atheist Kenyan father and a white American mother that did not practice religion.
Born in Hawaii, he lived from ages 6 to 10 in Indonesia with his mother and Muslim stepfather.
Obama, who describes himself as a proud follower of the Trinity United Church of Christ, also stumbled for weeks over inflammatory sermons by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor for the last 20 years.
Even his wife Michelle was not spared the campaign fire. He recently had to come out in force against Republicans using her as punch-bag.
Making History
But Obama's hope and change message resonated across a country wearied by the Iraq war and stalked by fears of recession.
He beat all the odds being overwhelming elected the first black American president in a transformational election that will reshape US politics and reposition the United States on the world stage.
Obama's victory was greeted with euphoria by a vast crowd gathered in his home city of Chicago, as his supporters, screamed, waved American flags as they waited for him to arrive to deliver his victory speech.
The 47-year-old will be inaugurated the 44th US president on January 20, 2009, in an historic inauguration that will complete a stunning ascent to the pinnacle of US and global politics from national obscurity just four years ago.
The presidency also marks a stunning social shift, with Obama, the son of Kenyan father and white mother from Kansas, the first African American president of a nation still riven by racial divides.
Forty-five years after civil rights icon Martin Luther King laid out his "dream" of racial equality, Obama's election broke new barriers and may have helped heal the moral wounds left by slavery and the US civil war.
He rocketed to prominence at the 2004 Democratic presidential convention with an electrifying call for unity.
"There is not a Black America and a White America….there's the United States of America."
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