A Moment for the Ages, Many Years in the Making

In his victory speech at Chicago's Grant Park, Barack Obama referenced Lincoln, King and others, urging collaboration, because "the road ahead will be long." (By Anthony Jacobs -- Getty Images)

"I just decided to pick him," Cahill remembered. "I called Kerry to discuss it . . . and he said 'fine.' " She had talked to Obama on the phone but never met him. The rest -- no way to resist this -- is history.

Obama's luck continued. His principal rivals for the Senate in 2004 -- the strongest Democrat in the primary, and then his Republican opponent -- both withdrew after the release of embarrassing personal details from divorce and child-custody proceedings. Obama won in a walk.

Next came the presidential campaign, where skill and cunning were more important than luck, though the good fortune continued. By the end of the primary season, Obama was a seasoned politician with a reputation for great oratory, now a hallmark of his ascent.

David Blight of Yale puts Obama in the tradition of African American orators who established "the leadership of language" when other tools of leadership were not available to blacks. Frederick Douglass was the first in this line. Obama often alluded to Douglass this year. At rallies in the closing days of the campaign, he urged supporters to keep working to the end: "Power concedes nothing without a fight." Douglass said in 1856: "Power never concedes anything without a demand."

Fittingly, Obama is a student of history who regularly weaves historical references into his oratory. In his 2004 speech in Boston, he quoted the Declaration of Independence and the slogan from the Great Seal of the United States, E Pluribus Unum-- from many, one. When introduced in the 18th century, this was a reference to the "many" colonies that banded together to become one new nation. In modern times it is more often seen as a reference to the American melting pot.

The victory speech Obama gave in Grant Park in Chicago on Tuesday night was chockablock with historical allusions, some obvious, some subtle. He used that slogan again: "Out of many, we are one." He acknowledged the strength his campaign drew "from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that . . . a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from this Earth." That last phrase, of course, was from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Obama recalled how the nation managed to "conquer fear itself" in the Great Depression, an allusion to the admonition in Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural address: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

And he echoed language from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: "The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there."

In his famous "Mountaintop" speech in Memphis, delivered the night before he was killed in 1968, King said: "I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!"

Clement Price of Rutgers describes the president-elect as the triumphant culmination of a long tradition of "first Negroes" -- the first blacks to hold particular positions in American society. This is a category that has long intrigued African Americans, Price says, but hasn't attracted much attention from whites -- until now. With Obama's election, Price notes, many white Americans "have joined the celebrations for the first time."

Roger Wilkins, professor emeritus at George Mason University and a former government official long active in the civil rights movement, says he can't help comparing Obama to the greatest of the first Negroes from his own childhood, Jackie Robinson, the first black Major League Baseball player. "Jack was out in space that no black person in this country had occupied before, and a lot hung on how well he did," Wilkins remembers. "He did very well, and a lot of barriers began to crumble." Wilkins expects a similar reaction to Obama. "If he is the person I believe him to be," he says, Obama will erode the racist inclinations still evident in parts of white America.

David Kennedy of Stanford goes further, suggesting that the first black president could also be the last -- not literally, but in the way John F. Kennedy was the first and the last "Catholic president." Kennedy's religion provoked controversy when he ran in 1960. But when another Catholic, Kerry, ran four years ago, his religion was "not a factor," Kennedy observes. Perhaps now we can look forward to a time when race is similarly insignificant, he suggests.

"That sounds premature," replies Price of Rutgers. Obama is atypical -- a self-described "mutt," son of an African father and a white Kansan mother. Obama masterfully introduced his loving mother and white grandparents "to help him navigate his way into the hearts and minds of white Americans. In the future we will see if a person of color who does not have those navigational advantages can succeed in the same way."

For the moment, the racial aspect of Obama's victory has become a source of pride, and not just for black Americans. In his elegant concession speech Tuesday night, John McCain was straightforward: "This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight." America, McCain added, has come a long way from "the cruel and frightful bigotry" that was once typical.

On Wednesday, President Bush addressed the issue from the Rose Garden: "Many of our citizens thought they would never live to see that day," he said. "This moment is especially uplifting for a generation of Americans who witnessed the struggle for civil rights with their own eyes, and four decades later see a dream fulfilled."

Most of the real history is still to be made, of course. Obama's election may have the biggest impact on children who will grow up taking a black president for granted.

Johnetta Cole, former president of the historically black Spelman College in Atlanta, says she spent part of Friday morning visiting Beverly Hall, the superintendent of schools in Atlanta. "I told Beverly, for every young child in the Atlanta school system, a miraculous thing just happened," Cole says. "Not every black child, every child. . . . This is of course monumental for us as African Americans, but it is extraordinary for anyone who breathes."