African Americans In South Celebrate Obama's Historic Win

BIRMINGHAM, AL - NOVEMBER 04: U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) supporters celebrate as his win of the presidential election is announced November 4, 2008 in Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham, along with Selma and Montgomery, were touchstones in the civil rights movement where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led massive protests which eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ending voter disfranchisement against African-Americans. Boutwell Auditorium is the same the auditorium where Sen. Strom Thurmond launched his racist "Dixiecrat" presidential campaign in 1948 and where singer Nat King Cole was attacked onstage by Ku Klux Klansmen during a "whites only" concert performance in 1957.Americans voted in the first presidential election featuring an African-American candidate, Democratic contender Sen. Barack Obama, who ran against Republican Sen. John McCain. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)