America united in celebration at Obama's election

They danced in the streets, wept, lifted their voices in prayer and brought traffic to a standstill.

From Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, Americans celebrated Barack Obama’s victory and marvelled that they lived to see the day that a black man was elected president.

Jubilation stretched into the early morning in the capital, and a large crowd paraded on Pennsylvania Avenue with drums, balloons and a life-size cut-out of Mr Obama.

In Philadelphia, thousands of blacks and whites converged at City Hall shortly after Mr Obama was declared the winner. Under a light rain, they danced to the music blaring from car radios. Drivers stopped in the middle of the street, opened their car doors and broadcast Mr Obama’s acceptance speech.

“Barack is in the house!” shouted Pamela Williams, 46. “This is very important to me. Change is about to happen.”

At Sadiki’s restaurant in Philadelphia, the celebration poured out onto the pavement.

“Our parents left this planet thinking that we would never, ever see this day, when an African-American could be elected by all the people to the highest seat in the land,” said Bernard Smalley. His wife Jacquelyn wept.

The celebrations were both large big and small, but the sentiment was the same - pure joy over how far the country has come. People honked horns, high-fived each other and embraced.

“I was born in the civil rights time. To see this happening is unbelievable. We’ve got the first black president. A black president!” said Mike Louis, a 53-year-old black man who became teary-eyed as he watched the election results on a giant video board in Cincinnati’s Fountain Square. “It’s not cured now, but this is a step to curing this country of racism. This is a big, giant step toward getting this country together.”

The roar of thousands of people gathered in a plaza near the Apollo Theatre in New York’s Harlem could be heard blocks away.

In Cleveland, supporters gathered at a house party and held champagne flutes above their heads for a toast. “To the first African-American president in the history of the United States!” they shouted.

In Chicago, Mr Obama’s hometown, an estimated 125,000 people gathered on an unusually warm November night to greet the senator at a delirious victory rally at Grant Park.

“It’s fantastic,” said Hulon Johnson, 71, a retired Chicago public school principal. “I’ve always told my kids this was possible; now they’ll have to believe me.”

LaKeisha Williams, a 27-year-old laid-off school nurse, who watched the victory on a TV in a Kansas City concert hall, said: “People actually have finally come together and realised that no matter what his race is, he was the right person for the job. I think it was destiny for him to win. But now we still have to come together to make sure things work.”

In Miami’s predominantly black Liberty City neighbourhood, Otoria Pitts, 30, suggested the significance of Mr Obama’s victory went beyond race.

“His election speaks volumes for a bunch of people,” she said. “Children of single mothers, people who put themselves through college. It says, you can do it, you can do it.”

Joined by her sister, Susan, and niece, Akira, the three women bought a few rockets from a fireworks stand and lit up the night sky with colour.

On the other side of the country, others were thinking how Mr Obama’s election could change their lives.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Jason Samm, a 33-year-old business owner who was celebrating in South Los Angeles. “I have three kids, which means a lot of doors opening up for them.”

Mr Obama’s victory also brought back memories of hard-fought battles of generations past.

At Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King preached, John Lewis, a civil rights hero, said he was hardly able to believe that 40 years after he was left beaten and bloody on an Alabama bridge as he marched for the right for blacks to vote, he had cast a ballot for Mr Obama.

“This is a great night,” he said. “It is an unbelievable night. It is a night of thanksgiving.”

As the news of a projected Obama victory flashed across a TV screen, men in the nearly all-black crowd pumped their fists and bowed their heads. Women wept and embraced their children. Screams of “Thank you, Lord!” were heard throughout the sanctuary.

Surveying the scene, Mattie Bridgewater whispered from her seat, “I just can’t believe it. Not in my lifetime.”

She said she went to the same school as Emmett Till, the boy from Chicago whose murder in Mississippi was one of the catalysts of the civil rights movement. Both she and her 92-year-old mother voted for Mr Obama.

“I’m sitting here in awe,” she said. “This is a moment in history that I just thank my God I was allowed to live long enough to see. Now, when I tell my students they can be anything they want to be, that includes president of the United States.”