Forty years after Martin Luther King's death, Barack Obama is getting ready to live his dream. When he takes oath as America's first black President on January 20, it will mark a new chapter in the history of the country.

The event is the biggest landmark in the country's turbulent racial history since the fight Rosa Parks took on in the 1950s. She fought against giving up her seat to a white man in a bus in Atlanta and thus galvanised Martin Luther King's civil rights movement.

"In many respects, we are still half way along in terms of civil rights. But it's an amazing moment in the evolution of blacks as a political force in a society we have been structured out of politically and economically," said Howard Dodson, Director, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Statistics from the November 2008 election show an unprecedented 95 per cent of America's black population turned up to vote. Many of them were young, first time voters who have been the backbone of Obama's victory.

"I am 20-years-old and it's the first time I voted. We all need a change. I voted for the right person but now it's in God's hands," a US voter had said.

If Obama brings hope for millions of Americans tired of two wars and a bad economy, his presence in the White House will take on a whole different meaning for a community that is often in the news for the wrong reasons.

"I started crying because I have a son. Every statistic on African-American males say they are lagging educationally, economically and that they are more likely to go to jail than college. But for the first time they have a role model so visible to the world, he gives them hope. I have a brother who belongs to one of those statistics. My son is going to be the first to go to college. He has hope and I can say that straight," said Tammy, a resident of New York City.

As President now, Barack Obama will have to walk a fine line between ensuring he lives up to the hopes of the black community as he represents whole of America.