The Hindu Business Line : Obama - from a low-paid community worker to President

WASHINGTON: From a small-time community worker to the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama's victory in the US Presidential polls marks a huge political transformation in a country with a racist past that will have a Black occupy the top post for the first time.

A votary of strong ties with India, the 47-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer and a Democrat reached the White House exactly 45 years after the Black civil rights leader Martin Luther King challenged Americans to embrace his “dream” of equality.

Barack Hussein Obama, whose father was a Kenyan and mother a White American, himself has had no misgivings on the herculean task he faced in getting elected as President because of his race and name.

This was reflected by his recent comment that getting elected to the White House would be a “leap”. Undertaking his campaign with a catchy slogan - 'The Change We Need' - Obama presented himself to America as a fresh face with the knowledge and mettle ne eded for the White House.

He emerged victorious after a gruelling and bitter 21-month-long campaign in which he overcame the challenge from high-profile fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton and Vietnam War veteran Republican nominee John McCain.

Born on August 4, 1961, in Hawaii, Obama will be the first Black President, a development that demonstrates a major change in America, which has witnessed bitter racism for centuries before the social evil was abolished about 200 years ago. - PTI

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