Live from Obamarama!

Note: This piece was originally published in the November 13, 2008 issue of Time Out London.

By lunchtime on November 4, a sense of serene anticipation spiced the air along Chicago's South Michigan Avenue as Barack Obama's supporters queued up at the main entrance to downtown's Grant Park for a victory rally that would captivate viewers around the world.

Tourists and office workers smiled at each other as if sharing a happy secret, while vendors hawked buttons and shirts summing up the pending historic moment—the ascension of an African-American to the US presidency—in mock newspaper headlines, alongside knock-off Andy Warhol portraits of the first man since Abraham Lincoln to rise from the Illinois statehouse to the White House.

When polls began closing on the east coast, we watched from Time Out Chicago's break room overlooking the park as revellers gathered under the glow of giant screens showing electoral college vote projections. Three Time Out staffers, mingling with the crowds in the park, capture the atmosphere:

Kris Vire, theatre critic “When CNN began making projections, Grant Park seemed more and more like the Happiest Place on Earth. We stayed close to the friends we'd come in with but realised meet-ups with latecomers would be impossible, so we made ‘rally friends’ with strangers around us. After the huge build-up, the moment of spontaneous, unfiltered elation came at 10pm. When CNN declared Obama would win, the crowd on Grant Park's Hutchinson Field went batshit. No reaction was possible, apart from tears, grins and happy talk while we waited for the president-elect to start his gracious and moving acceptance speech just before midnight.”

Novid Parsi, senior editor “After we slowly passed through three different gates with security guards asking to see tickets and ID, we joined a sea of bodies. Just then, CNN announced that Barack Obama would be our next president. The crowd cheered, applauded, waved…but at the same time, seemed strangely calm. After Obama's speech, a palpable sense of ease pervaded the masses of people as they simply left the park in an orderly fashion. As one woman put it, everyone was ‘at peace, at peace.’”

Mike Novak, associate art director “When we arrived at Grant Park everything was eerily calm. There were bright floodlights shining on everything, which added to the surreal mood, and music was being blasted from all angles. There was a slight breeze off Lake Michigan, and people were just milling around smiling at each other, texting, and trying to find their friends. The most surprising moment of the night came at 10pm. CNN had announced that Obama had won Virginia moments before, which we all knew pretty much sealed the deal. Then the JumboTron went to a ‘breaking news’ graphic. I thought they were about to call California, but instead the screen read ‘Barack Obama, president-elect.’ People cried, hugged and cheered.

“Later, on the way back to the train, I found myself in the midst of an impromptu parade, which included a Dixieland jazz band complete with a tuba, banjo and an elderly man playing a washboard. They were halfway through ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ I joined in, of course.”

But what will Obama's election mean for Chicago now that the music has faded? For one thing, the spectacle of revellers petting police horses downtown has supplanted memories of a riot that left anti-war protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention chanting “the whole world is watching” in the same streets. For another, the rise of the internationally popular Obama—his largest crowd before election night was in Berlin—bodes well for the city's bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games. (That Obamapalooza, as the rally was dubbed on T-shirts, hosted some 250,000 participants without serious incident should impress the International Olympic Committee as well.)

Even more important, an Obama presidency promises to help bridge the lingering racial divide in this city and the imperfect nation it calls home. The morning after, one white TOC staffer who attended the rally, online producer Jessica Johnson, recalled “the African-American couple next to me who embraced each other while the husband shouted the lyrics of ‘My Country ’Tis of Thee.’ Hearing this man scream the words ‘sweet land of liberty’ while clutching his wife and waving a large American flag made standing on that field for several hours totally worth it.”

No matter how Obama fares in office, his electoral victory represents the fulfilment of one very important dream.