America Followed Obama Over the Racial Divide

The New York Times
November 5, 2008

By RACHEL L. SWARNS
WASHINGTON — Even during the darkest hours of his presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois held on to his improbable, unshakable conviction that America was ready to step across the color line.
On Tuesday, America leaped.
Millions of voters — white and black, Hispanic and Asian, biracial and multiracial — put their faith and the future of their country into the hands of a 47-year-old black man who made history both because of his race and in spite of it.
African-Americans wept and danced in the streets on Tuesday night, declaring that a once-reluctant nation had finally lived up to its democratic promise. Strangers of all colors exulted in small towns and big cities. And white voters marveled at what they had wrought in turning a page on the country’s bitter racial history.
“It brought tears to my eyes to see the lines,” said Bob Haskins, a black maintenance worker at an Atlanta church, where scores of college students voted on Tuesday. “For these young folks, this is a calling. Everything that Martin Luther King talked about is coming true today.”
Tobey Benas, a retired teacher who voted for Mr. Obama in Chicago, also savored the moment: “I can’t believe how far we’ve come,” said Ms. Benas, who is white. “This goes very deep for me.”
In a country long divided, Mr. Obama had a singular appeal: he is biracial and Ivy League educated; a stirring speaker who shoots hoops and quotes the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr; a politician who grooves to the rapper Jay-Z and loves the lyricism of the cellist Yo-Yo Ma; a man of remarkable control and startling boldness.
He was also something completely new: an African-American presidential candidate without a race-based agenda. And his message of unity and his promise of a new way of thinking seemed to inspire — or least offer some reassurance — to a country staggered by two wars, a convulsing economy and sometimes bewildering global change. [Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05race.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin ]