Martin Luther King (1929-1968).

So Sam Cooke was right. Forty four years ago he penned “A change is gonna come” a superb and powerful ballad about the dreams of equality held by Black Americans (currently being covered by Seal, a very timely release!).

Sam Cooke and the rest of black America had hoped change would have come before now of course, it shows that the power and determination of the US state machinery should not be underestimated. Anybody who was queued for hours at US airport immigration will tell you that.

But at last change has come; from here in the UK it’s easy to underestimate what a big deal this is. Barack Obama’s victory in this country with such a long history of racial oppression is quite amazing. His identity as a black man was one he himself didn’t trade on during the campaign, perhaps knowing this could alienate a lot of undecided white voters, but media pictures ran the story on his behalf. The election result of last night began fermenting in the civil rights movement of the late 1960’s, with arguably America’s greatest ever activist at its helm. If you could send just one message to somebody beyond the grave, it would have to be to tell Martin Luther King about this momentous day. It’s bound to become a cliché but his dream has at last been realised. Hearing Jesse Jackson in tears over this on the radio today was really quite moving. I have seen the subtleties of modern day racism in the US myself, it may be open or it may be covert, but it’s there. Hopefully 5 years of Obama will be long enough to begin to dismantle it.

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to visit the Martin Luther King memorial centre in Georgia. It’s a museum about his life and the black empowerment struggle, it’s housed on the street where he lived, and it’s excellent. I would say it’s a “do not miss” attraction for anyone going to Atlanta. For a flavour of what MLK was about his letter from Birmingham jail is long but says so much, and is truly inspirational for non-white Americans. It finishes with “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.” (MLK 1963).

Poetic and powerful words, all the more so for being written from a prison cell. This letter and the “I have a dream speech” are surely the most powerful calls for racial and social justice the world has seen in the modern era. Today MLK’s sentiment of “free at last” has been echoing across the USA.

Barack Obama’s victory would seem to bring renewed hope to a cynical world; it offers the possibility of the world’s most powerful nation (for the time being at least) exercising its great power in a more careful and considered way. The ineptitude of the Bush years can be swept away and the world can move on. On so many levels, from Martin Luther King, to the possibility of America at last doing something positive in Africa, to help end conflict and suffering, this is a great day. I don’t even need to mention the Middle East here of course.

I have two fears though, one is that some redneck or white supremacist will target him; the land of the free has a strong track record in killing its best people. The other is that the weight of expectation weighs so heavily on Mr Obama that if he doesn’t deliver change, and fast, he will be said to have failed. He is only one man, he needs the best team around him, and I really hope he is able to muster that team quickly.

The other great thing about Obama is that he’s not George Bush! At last, the tongue tied king of cronyism is put out to grass. How so many people could have ever voted for such an outright idiot, and twice (well almost) I’ll never know. How many people died around the world as a result of his actions I hate to think?

“Barack Obama you have 5 years to change the world, your time starts…now!”

- That’s not a job I’d want for all the poppies in Afghanistan!