Obama elected 44th and first black President of US - 2

Obama, a 47-year-old Illinois senator and son of a white mother from Kansas and an African father from Kenya, mined a deep vein of national discontent, promising Americans hope and change throughout a nearly flawless 21-month campaign for the White House.

Obama stepped through a door opened 145 years ago when Abraham Lincoln, a fellow Illinois politician, issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed African-Americans from enshavement in the rebellious South in the midst of a wrenching civil war.

Obama lays claim to the White House on Jan. 20, only 43 years after the country enacted a law that banned the disenfranchisement of blacks in many Southern states where poll taxes and literacy tests were common at the time.

Cautioning Americans that the nation’s problems were manifest, Obama said: ``The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even 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.’’Democratic primary rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton promised Obama her full support and congratulated Americans for making him the 44th US president.
``In quiet, solitary acts of citizenship, American voters gave voice to their hopes and their values, voted for change, and refused to be invisible any longer,’’ she said.

With victories in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other battleground states, Obama built a commanding lead over McCain after surging in the polls in the midst of a national financial crisis. He and his fellow Democrats sought to link McCain to the unpopular George W. Bush.