Obama is King’s dream come true

In a country that coined the term “lynching” for extrajudicial murder of blacks and poor whites, Barack Hussein Obama made history on Tuesday when he became the first African American to have been elected president of the United States of America.

African Americans described the victory as a “realisation of Martin Luther King’s dream” — a reference to the 1963 speech of the iconic civil rights leader spelling out his vision for an America cleansed of racism.

Hundreds of African Americans who grew up in the segregated south of the United States burst into tears during a march in Atlanta, Georgia, to celebrate Obama’s triumph. Atlanta is King’s birthplace as well as his final resting place.

Mr King’s daughter, Bernice King, was one of the first to grasp that history was in the making when shortly after 9pm (US eastern time) she urged the crowds to change their chant from “yes we can” to “yes we have”.

Mr Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, a Vietnam war hero with 50 years of public service.

Barack Obama won 349 electoral votes while Mr McCain got 173. He needed 270 to win.