Rapture in the Streets as Multitudes Cheer Obama and Celebrate America

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Obama Supporters Rally Outside White House

Hundreds of Obama supporters took to the streets in front of the White House for hours after Sen. Barack Obama was elected 44th President of the United States.

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Charmaine Ravizee has spent the last year imagining it. She's a graduate student at Howard University, writing her dissertation on how Barack Obama uses language to transcend race. Now she watched whites and blacks hug one another, and she offered her conclusions: "It's about brilliance and nurturing. Brilliance is something we can all respect. And we need a nurturing effect right now. We all need to feel included."

These are the people who didn't get it when John McCain made fun of community organizers. They're the Americans who thought politics was about inspiring people to do better, not just about ripping the other guy. Some are naive. Some are putting too much faith in one man. But from Washington to Lincoln to FDR to Kennedy to Reagan, that's what we do. We search for someone to embody and carry our idea of who we are right now. Looks like we've found our symbol.

Drummers kept up a steady beat, and drivers turned their horns into trumpets of revelation. College kids who just hours earlier might have recoiled from the chant shouted "U-S-A! U-S-A!"

Inside Ben's Chili Bowl, the crowd sang along with "My Girl" on the jukebox, changing the lyrics as they went: "What can make me feel this way? O-bama, talkin' 'bout Obama!"

Mike Zigler of Bowie, soaking it all in with LuChiea Grissom and her two boys, told the kids it was time "to thank white America. White America finally stepped up and crossed the bridge. For the first time in my life, I can really believe we can be equal."

"I am an American," Grissom said. "Tonight I've seen it, what that really means. A proud American."

Her son Andre, a student at Phelps Career High School in Northeast Washington, recited King's words from memory, the part about how people would someday be judged not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

"We're here," his mother said. "We're here."

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