10 Photos to Remind You of Obama's First Presidential Election Victory

Do you bear in mind the place you had been once you heard the information that Barack Obama had gained the 2008 presidential election? Do you bear in mind who you had been with?

November 4, 2023, marks 15 years because the junior senator from Illinois made historical past by defeating John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, and turning into the forty fourth president of the USA.

An aged Black lady working as a ballot employee handed me my poll, a smile beaming from her face, and I began crying. I nonetheless have my stub from that poll, proof that I used to be a part of historical past. And I bear in mind afterward that night time, after the Obama victory had been introduced, my two sons jumped round, screaming and yelling out the window, “Barack Obama is the President!!!” And I cried some extra.

I took this screenshot of the Chicago Tribune house web page after Obama gained on Nov. 4, 2008.

We at the moment are 15 years faraway from that historic second when the USA, a nation constructed on the backs of our enslaved ancestors, elected a Black man to the best workplace within the land.

In Obama, so many Black People didn’t simply see a politician. We noticed, in him, fragments of our collective selves — the hopes of Harlem Renaissance poets, the dedication of Civil Rights marchers, the ambition of Black college students trapped in intentionally underfunded faculties. And we noticed the deferred goals of our elders.

We’ve lived plenty of life since then — the Nice Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump presidency, the election of Joe Biden as president and Kamala Haris as his vp. Sadly, we bought used to taking to social media and hashtagging the names of Black people killed by the police — Tamir Rice, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a whole lot extra. Yearly, some people mark how outdated Trayvon Martin could be if George Zimmerman hadn’t gunned him down in February 2012 whereas he walked house with a pack of Skittles and a can of Arizona Iced Tea. There’s the ever-present specter of struggle. Fuel, meals, and hire are larger than excessive… the whitelash retains whitelashing, the world is heavy with the burden of ache and struggling, and generally all of it makes it tough to recollect what hope and alter felt like.

So we want reminders of what’s potential, reminders of what occurs once we present up and vote, reminders that regardless of the white supremacy-based efforts of people and establishments who don’t need change, ultimately, progress can’t be stopped. Sure, the work to realize true racial justice and equality remains to be there to be achieved, and as so many individuals have stated, having Barack Obama as president didn’t finish anti-Black racism. However him being president mattered. Having Michelle Obama as our first woman mattered. Having Sasha and Malia within the White Home and watching them develop up like they had been our play cousins mattered. Fifteen years later, let these images function a reminder of what it felt prefer to witness how far Black America has come.