Voters elect Barack Obama as first Black president

Voters elect Barack Obama president on November 4, 2008, making him the first Black president of the United States. His victory follows a campaign that drew both multiracial coalition support and racialized attacks and rumors. Obama's election does not end structural racism, but it is a major symbolic and political milestone in a country whose Constitution once protected slavery and whose laws later enforced segregation. The election changes representation at the highest level of government while also exposing new forms of racial backlash in national politics.