Bound for Glory: Following in Lincoln’s tracks, Barack Obama rides into history.

By: Terence Samuel

At 11:38 a.m. Saturday, a 10-car train carrying Barack Obama pulled out of 30th Street Station Philadelphia, taking the next American president on the symbolic final leg of his historic journey to the White House. The trip, meant to echo one that Abraham Lincoln took to Washington after his election 148 years ago, was yet another reminder that Obama, who has come to personify the American future, is deeply conversant with its complicated past.

“We are here to mark the beginning of our journey to Washington,” Obama told a small group of about 200 supporters at a relatively intimate event inside the grand art-deco station before setting off. “This is fitting because it was here, in this city, that our American journey began. It was here that a group of farmers and lawyers, merchants and soldiers, gathered to declare their independence and lay claim to a destiny that they were being denied.”

Resonating throughout that observation is the understanding that his election represents a step toward resolution for claims African Americans have had on the American conscience, for other destinies denied and promises unmet because of prejudice.

Bound for Glory....