Jubilation greets Barack Obama's presidential victory

The Guardian by Ed Pilkington in Atlanta | Nov. 5, 2008 (News Report)

The victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race was greeted by scenes of jubilation in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, the place of worship where Martin Luther King Jr preached and which held his funeral in 1968.

Crowds danced in the streets, chanting "Obama! Obama!", passing cars honked their horns and tears flowed liberally. Inside the church, a congregation of about 2,000 African Americans burst into riotous applause, hands aloft, ... Full Story »

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by Michael Bugeja - Nov. 5, 2008

Unlike the New York Times article about the presidential election, which overemphasized partisan politics and forgot to mark the jubilation that much of America felt last night, this U.K. story from The Guardian showcases the joy that so many will remember concerning this historic moment in U.S. democracy.

Journalists who are bystanders to computers have focused on partisan politics today while those who are bysytanders to history have recorded the jubilation, especially of youth, whose future Obama has come to represent.

Victory for the first African American presidential candidate had been predicted earlier in the evening at Ebenezer church, where Martin Luther King preached between 1960 and his assassination in 1968. King’s daughter, Bernice, told the congregation while the night was still young: “I want to flip the script. To those who’ve been saying ‘Yes we can’, it’s time to say ‘Yes we have’.” Echoing her father’s famous refrain, “let freedom reign”, the preacher continued: “From every place in America, freedom is about to reign as we witness the first president of African-American descent rise in this nation.”

For many around the world, the election of Obama was a spiritual as well as secular moment. This story evokes the spirit of Martin Luther King.

Michael posted this story.