A Dream Comes True, With a Little Magic Thrown In: 'Maybe America Has Really Changed'

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U Street Jubilation

D.C. residents rejoice after hearing that Senator Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States of America.

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He and his wife, Jacqueline, had just voted for Obama and were walking hand in hand from the polls at Oxon Hill Middle School. "I just think Obama is on a mission from God," she said.

The young and gifted Obama waged a campaign that appealed to hearts and souls. By transcending race, he led America to break through its most formidable racial barrier.

"I feel great about having the opportunity to vote for a black presidential nominee," said Easter Gowen, 67, a program analyst for the U.S. Government Printing Office. "I'm also happy to cast a vote of confidence in our society and what America stands for."

There was something divine about Obama's run. For a candidate to appear not too black for whites and not too white for blacks was phenomenal if not miraculous.

"Having the first black president may be historic, but it's more important for me to have a president who shares my values," said Sharisse Felton, 23, an African American electrical engineering student at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. "I'm for Obama because of his economic policies, not his race."

And beyond all that, the promise of -- the symbolism of -- a black president was irresistible.

"It now takes away the excuses that young black men use to justify not trying hard enough," said Grover Carson, 62, a retired D.C. police officer. "You can't say that the white man is holding you back when you got a black man in the White House."

Henry Saunders, a 50-year-old federal contractor, put it this way: "As an African American, even though Obama has no special agenda for black people, as he goes up in stature, so do the rest of us. We are now more inclined to challenge ourselves, to try to improve and empower ourselves because he has raised our expectations."

But what about Obama's astounding support among white Americans? Many blacks found that mystifying.

"I didn't think I'd live long enough to see America vote for a black president," said Truth Omole, a 38-year-old teacher. By "America," she meant white people.

"Maybe America has really changed," she said. "I didn't live through the civil rights movement, but I did grow up with an expectation that certain things just couldn't happen for black people."

A younger generation of black and white Americans spearheaded the change. Unified by political hip-hop music, more concerned with an inheritance of debt and war than with superficial matters of skin color, they rallied for Obama throughout the nation.

Politics of racial divisiveness, dismissed.

Barack Obama, salute.

America, take a bow.

E-mail:milloyc@washpost.com