Black Americans celebrate Obama's victory

By Matthew Bigg

ATLANTA (Reuters) - In churches and bars, on the street and in their homes, African Americans celebrated Barack Obama's historic presidential election victory on Tuesday with tears, horn blasts and shouts of joy.

In New York, people of all races streamed down from Broadway from Columbia University to Obama's campaign office at 105th Street chanting "O-ba-ma."

Obama supporters drove through the streets of downtown Washington for hours, honking their horns and cheering. A crowd of several hundred people gathered outside the gates of the White House in the drizzle, beating a drum.

In Atlanta, at civil rights leader Martin Luther King's old church, Ebenezer Baptist, a deafening shout greeted the announcement of Obama's victory and rolled on for minutes.

"On the night before King was assassinated, he said: 'I have been to the mountain top, I have looked over and I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you,'" Pastor Raphael Warnock said.

"Tonight we have seized the promise of America."

And in Chicago's Grant Park, Rev. Jesse Jackson stood among a crowd of tens of thousands of Obama supporters with tears rolling down his cheeks.

Jackson, who twice sought the presidency himself, witnessed King's assassination in Memphis 40 years ago.

'CIVIL WAR ENDED'

For anyone with a sense of America's history of slavery and the 19th century Civil War that tore the country apart, Obama's win was a landmark.

Slavery and its successor, a brutal system of racial segregation that prevailed in the South until the 1960s, long tarnished the country's pride in democratic ideals.

"And so it came to pass that on November 4, 2008, shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern time, the American Civil War ended, as a black man -- Barack Hussein Obama -- won enough electoral votes to become president of the United States." wrote New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

It was not just columnists seeing a moment to savor.

"This is definitely history in the making," said elementary school teacher Sheneka Mayes, 32, in Atlanta. "This night will be burned into my memory and into the memory of my children."

In a politically polarized country, many conservatives bemoaned the defeat of Republican John McCain but supporters of Democrat Obama delighted in his win, and many of them because he will be the first black president in U.S. history.