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Obama is first African-American presidential nominee

BY ELIZABETH MOORE | elizabeth.moore@newsday.com

August 28, 2008

DENVER - In a watershed moment that drew tears of amazement and joy on the convention floor, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama secured a place in history last night, becoming the first African-American presidential nominee of a major party.

The landmark event came after New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton turned the page on a contentious primary season and asked that the delegate roll-call vote be suspended so that delegates could nominate Obama by acclamation.

"Let's declare together in one voice, right here, right now that Barack Obama is our candidate and he will be our president," Clinton said as the hall erupted in cheers, and in mere moments, Obama was officially the party's contender for the White House.

His supporters veered between elation and disbelief.

"We are seeing the fruits of the Selma generation," the civil-rights leaders who endured violence and retribution in Alabama, said Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. "And it is profound."

"I sometimes just sit down and say 'damn!'" said state Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem), a few hours before the vote. "It makes me feel so proud of the country."

"It hit me when Arkansas stood up and gave all their votes to Obama," said John Hale Jr., a retired auto-industry manager who had traveled to the convention from Detroit with his grandchildren. "I said, this is it. We're here."

A former Army veteran who remembers the segregated bus station waiting areas in the South, Hale admitted, "it's very emotional. Honestly, I didn't think I'd live to see it. When he first started running, I said, 'this guy is not going to make it.' This country has come a long way."

Obama himself traveled to the convention hall late last night, making an unscheduled stop inside the Pepsi Center - transformed into a rollicking party to celebrate his historic nomination.

He joined running mate Joe Biden on the platform. He said he wants people to understand why he is proud to have "the whole Biden family on this journey with me to take America back."

And he deadpanned at one point that he thought the convention had "gone pretty well so far."

Obama, 47, the son of a white mother and black father, arrived in Denver yesterday afternoon to prepare for his acceptance speech tonight to face Republican Sen. John McCain in the general election.

Delegate roll calls are a standard feature of conventions, but this year's closely contested primary battle left Obama and his campaign dubious about the Clinton campaign's belief that it would help her delegates work out their sore feelings about her defeat.

That may be why details of this convention's roll call procedure remained unresolved well into the day yesterday.

As promised, Clinton released her 1,920 delegates from their pledge to vote for her at a midday reception, telling them they would have to decide which way to vote.

In a carefully orchestrated Kabuki designed to make the alphabetical roll call process play out harmoniously on national television, California passed on declaring how its 441 delegates would vote, as did Illinois. The tally got as far as New Mexico, which yielded the floor to Obama's home state of Illinois. Illinois yielded to New York.

And Clinton, flanked by Gov. David A. Paterson, Sen. Charles Schumer and the rest of the New York delegates, put Obama over the top.