WHEN the moment came, it swept across Chicago's Grant Park like a tsunami. For some, it marked the end of centuries of racial repression; for others, it was the climax of eight years of resentment towards the Bush presidency. Whatever the reason, frustration and hopelessness were supplanted with spontaneous joy.
In front of me, a 60-year-old man fell to his knees, weeping. Alongside, an African-American mother and her teenage daughter hugged and cried on one another's shoulders.
Nearby, a woman in a wheelchair flung her arms in the air and looked into the clear night sky, shouting "thank God, thank God" over and over again.
The 125,000 crowd in the Windy City had known it was coming. Only two minutes before, at 9:58pm Chicago time (3:58am in the UK), Virginia had been called for Barack Obama, giving him 220 electoral college votes. They knew California and its 55 votes were in the bag. A crowd that had voted in hope, and gone to the party in expectation, were at last able to realise their dream.
The big screens beaming in CNN declared Mr Obama would be the next president of the United States and a chant of his campaign mantra, "yes we can, yes we can" went up.
It couldn't get any better. And then it did. Forty-five minutes later, the giant screens around the park cut off CNN's coverage, leaving the stage empty of everything but 25 stars and stripes rustling in the breeze.
The huge crowd, which had been dancing and singing, suddenly hushed in anticipation, only to explode again as the man who will be the next president of the United States walked on to the stage with his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters.
Barack Obama showed no signs of the exertions of the past 21 months of campaigning, which had continued in neighbouring Indiana on the final day, or his "lucky" game of basketball a few hours before.
Calm and collected, he paused to acknowledge the applause and cheers. And then, smiling almost shyly, his very first words as president-elect were, simply, "Hello Chicago", expressing his love for an adopted city that had given him a political career.
His acknowledgement of John McCain as a "gracious" opponent was met with a smattering of polite applause; a reference to Sarah Palin was met with boos.
But the speech that followed – in which he paid tribute to his family and promised his two daughters "the new puppy that's coming with us to the new White House" – will live long in the memory.
Even diehard Republicans were moved, as he thanked those who had supported him and, quoting perhaps the finest president of all time, Abraham Lincoln, asked those who had not to help him.
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," he told the thousands gathered before him.
He was right. Overnight, the United States had changed. It had become a different country, a place where, once again, anything was possible. Less than 45 years after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act banning racial discrimination, an African-American had swept his way to the White House.
The president-elect used the example of 106-year-old Anne Nixon Cooper to underline his country's ability to change.
He told the crowd how this year she "touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change".
Thirteen years after a young would-be Chicago senator told his local newspaper, "People are hungry for community. They are hungry for change", the people of America got just that.
Few articulated that sense of expectation better than Lauren Golston, an 18-year-old black woman from the South Side of Chicago, the poor district where Mr Obama's political career began. She was a perfect photofit of the type of new, young, previously disenfranchised US citizen that the Obama campaign has motivated. She spoke to me with passion and expectation.
"We're the real America," she said. "Barack Obama is going to take us out of the war in Iraq, he's going to sort out our economy, he's going to give us proper healthcare and education, he's going to look after us."
A different sort of voter, Randolph Rake, a college lecturer and video artist in his 50s from Washington DC, also had his expectations.
"We're hated out there because of what Bush has done, his arrogance and his lack of respect for democracy," he said. "Obama will bring back a respect for our freedoms and our values."
The world has its expectations, too. Much of the globe was represented in Grant Park. I met people from Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Britain, Canada and Australia.
Cory Ruf, a Canadian student, told me: "This was one of those moments people will ask you where you were when you heard it happened. I wanted to say I was in Chicago at the party with Barack Obama when he was elected president. Because this is a moment when the world will be healed."
If the US could have frozen this moment in time, it would have. For the weight of expectation on Mr Obama's presidency is like few before.
After listening to two years of relentless campaigning, with more than 40 debates, and watching some $2.5 billion (£1.5 billion) being poured into the campaigns, the people of the US could have been forgiven for switching off. Instead, they voted in their droves.
And for this achievement, Mr Obama thanked his supporters.
"I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you," he told the crowd. "This is your victory."
The secret worry for many now is: can Barack Hussein Obama really deliver?
Can he cope with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? Can he heal a nation polarised by the Bush years, with many groups still refusing to support him and white supremacists having already tried to assassinate him?
Will he be able to take the troops out of Iraq? Will he be able to succeed where so many have failed in trying to give Americans a healthcare system?
The expectation of change that Mr Obama has built dwarfs both the towering glass facades of Chicago's commercial district that loomed over revellers in Grant Park, and the great lake that washes up on its shores.
However, his acceptance speech, though greeted with whoops of joy, contained a warning that people would need to be patient and that they would not agree with everything he did. In his moment of victory, he was cushioning people from future disappointment.
"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep," he said. "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.
"There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem."
One Briton who was there on the night, Jennifer Paddock, from Norwich, described the moment of victory as akin to a religious experience.
But she added: "I just hope he doesn't turn out to be another Tony Blair – all fine words offering us great hope but little to show for it, except an illegal war in Iraq."
But there were many among the Chicago crowd who were more than willing to give Mr Obama the time he needs.
Neicy Ward, an African-American woman whom I met in her shop on the South Side and who wanted to be as close to her hero as possible, took a realistic view.
"Change will happen with this man, but it cannot happen overnight," she said.
Two other black Chicagoans, husband and wife Little Nelson Jnr and Anita, did not expect overnight changes, either.
"The fact that an African-American has even been nominated and run for the highest office, let alone won, shows that change has happened," Mrs Nelson said. "We just need to let him get on with the job now and the change we need will happen in time."
Her husband added: "Never let it be said now that you cannot achieve anything because of the colour of your skin."
Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt were in Grant Park, but it was the stories of personal efforts made by individuals in the crowd, to create the moment of history, that underlined the pressure on Mr Obama to fulfil their dreams.
Caroline Allen lives in Chicago, but she registered to vote in her family's home town of St Louis so she could have an impact on the swing state of Missouri. She travelled there a week ago to vote early and queued for five hours at a polling station, then immediately headed back to the Windy City so she could be near Mr Obama at the victory party.
"What's a bit of lost time when you can change the world?" she said.
Alan Barnes, a 60-year-old consultant dentist from Florida, jumped in his car and drove about 1,500 miles to the shores of Lake Michigan just so he could be there for a moment of history.
Change has arrived and, for people like these, it is going to happen.
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• Faith, hope and clarity: The secrets of Obama's success
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• Hail to the chief – but not every nation is won over
• Analysis: Now the blame game begins for Republicans
• Black history: from slave plantation to president
• Quarantine over for 'foot-in-mouth' Joe
• The speech in full: Yes we can … the three little words that inspired a nation
• Michelle Obama: First among equals
Campaign begins to pull together team that will lead America
Wesley Johnson
BARACK Obama "will move as quickly as he can" to set up the team who will help him to rule America as its first black president, his chief strategist said.
Mr Obama's historic victory leaves him facing two wars, a global financial crisis and a planet in peril when he enters the Oval Office on 20 January.
But the 47-year-old Illinois senator will not wait until then to get started, with aides suggesting he will start naming key members of his first administration by the end of the week. He will also receive his first highly classified briefing from top US intelligence officials tomorrow.
Mr Obama, who declared "change has come to America" and appealed to his opponents for help in tackling the world's problems, has said his No1 task will be to repair and stabilise the US economy.
Britain can expect a "recalibrating" of the so-called special relationship between the UK and the US. On his European tour this year, Mr Obama made it clear that he wanted the relationship between the two countries made "fairer and more equal".
He said: "We have a chance to recalibrate the relationship and for the United Kingdom to work with America as a full partner."
A foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign explained: "This means it is no longer that we are in the lead and everyone else follows us."
Mr Obama has also indicated that he would be asking Britain to send 3,000 more troops into Afghanistan.
John Podesta, the former Clinton chief of staff, Valerie Jarrett, a long-time adviser to Mr Obama, and Pete Rouse, his Senate chief of staff, were expected to lead the presidential transition team. Rahm Emanuel, a member of the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives, has already been offered the job to head the president-elect's staff, party sources said last night.
There was further good news for the Democrats yesterday, with the party gaining at least five Senate seats and about 20 in the House of Representatives, giving them a commanding majority in Congress and strengthening Mr Obama's hand. Four Senate seats remained undecided.
If the Democrats reach 60 seats, they will be able pass legislation even in the face of Republican procedural hurdles.
The US media yesterday joined in the fervour over Mr Obama's election. The Los Angeles Times said: "By any measure, this is a monumental day in our nation's history.
"The election of Barack Obama symbolises the resurrection of hope and the restoration of belief in a country that has often failed to treat its black citizens as kin."
The New York Daily News reflected on "how far we've come" and said: "Today, this nation – so haunted by the original sin of slavery, so riven by the torments of race and yet so dedicated to the ideal that all men are created equal – has elevated a black man to the presidency.
"We are the beneficiaries of our better angels – while seeming in no small measure surprised that they have won out. The question asked time and again over the last two years has been answered: Americans were ready after all … to welcome a black man to the White House."
The full article contains 2266 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
