Obama breaks barriers for black Americans “I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger

Originally published Nov. 5, 2008.

Four years after he burst onto the national scene, Barack Obama’s improbable story has another precedent-shattering chapter, as the 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, the Hawaii-born son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, adds another title to an already remarkable resume: president-elect.

Many black voters, patiently waiting at packed polling stations across the country, said they had never thought they would live to see one of their own win the world’s most powerful office.

The long lines leading to the voting booths in the morning gave way to exultant open-air street parties as Mr. Obama’s victory became apparent in the evening, topped by a massive open-air bash in the candidate’s home city of Chicago.

“I believed it would happen one day because my father told me to believe one day it would come to pass, but I just never expected to see it in my lifetime,” said Shelley Stokes Hammond, a public affairs officer at Howard University and daughter of former Rep. Louis Stokes, Ohio Democrat. Mrs. Stokes Hammond had just voted at a school in Silver Spring.

Her son, Eric Hammond, added, “Actually, your dad told me he didn’t really believe it, either.”

Mrs. Stokes Hammond said her family recently recovered records showing her ancestors first appearing on the voting rolls in Jefferson County, Ga., in 1867, two years after the end of the Civil War. By 1897, the county - named for one of 12 U.S. presidents who owned black slaves at some point in their lives - had disqualified all of her relatives from voting under the South’s Jim Crow laws.

“It is an emotional issue for many of us,” said Molefi Kete Asante, a pioneer of black studies at Temple University and author of more than 60 books. “This is what our parents struggled and fought and voted for. If they could have seen this, I doubt they would have been able to conceive it.”

Addie Green couldn’t vote for Mr. Obama, but that didn’t stop her from hosting a victory party for the Democrat. The Trinidad and Tobago native and owner of the Islander Restaurant on the District’s U Street had music blaring, Caribbean food cooking and televisions showing the returns.

She wasn’t about to let the election of the country’s first black president - one with foreign roots like her own - pass her by.

“However it turns out, no matter who wins, it’s a historic moment for all,” Ms. Green said.

Bars, clubs and restaurants up and down U Street, the city’s hub of black night life, hosted election-night parties as the size of Mr. Obama’s victory became apparent.

It was a far cry from the image of burned and looted homes and businesses that marked the same street 40 years ago, leveled in the riots that followed the April 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

From the outset, the 2008 presidential election seemed destined for a thick chapter in the history books. With Mr. Obama, Republican Sen. John McCain and other hopefuls beginning their quest to succeed President Bush in early 2007, the campaign was easily the longest and most expensive ever.

Mr. Obama scored a stunning upset over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in a long, bitter Democratic primary contest, ending the former first lady’s bid to become the nation’s first female president.

Story Continues →