'Race' to the White House

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Perhaps every Presidential election day, the tendency is to see the choice as historic, but this time America believes its truly making history.

Its taken nearly two years, many ups and downs, many hits and misses and finally in a few hours America would know who its next President would be, whether America voted for the best man, whether America voted its prejudice or whether the nation voted with its best interests in mind.

As Barack Obama called it, in one of his radio interviews, its like running a marathon. "On mile 20 you're tired. On mile 25, you're full of energy." This energy will be much needed for the next President. Remember just a year ago America was in a different place. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had broken 14,000. The war in Iraq was sure to surge the Presidential campaign.

But look where America is today.

For once the term an 'epic election' doesnt seem to be out of context. With this election so valiantly fought, Americans believe this is a seminal moment in reasserting and redefining America's identity at home and across the world. Many African Americans I spoke to believe this election marks the next big step in the transformation that has been happening in American society ever since Lyndon Johnson virtually outlawed most forms of racial segregation in America.

The Civil rights acts of the Johnson era compelled whites to eat with blacks in the same restaurants and to share the same motels and hotels. Affirmative action accustomed whites to seeing blacks in positions from which they had, by custom or by law, been excluded.

Since then America has seen a whole lot of change. And whatever the result is on the 5th of November, it will be followed by a lot of emotion. In the case of an Obama Presidency, many African Americans says its a day they are reminded of their grand parents and great grand parents who often said, "You can be anything you want to be."