By Johnette Jernigan and Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper

CHICAGO,Illinois-Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States of America, won reelection Tuesday night after winning Ohio by 2 percentage points in a historical election that was as important and as symbolic to many in the Black community as was his rise to the White House in 2008.

“Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destination, the task of our union moves forward,” said Obama during his victory speech to a cheering crowd of thousands at his campaign headquarters in Chicago.  “It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope.”

With 270 electoral votes needed from the states to win and more still coming in for the count from places like Florida, the Democrat Obama took the election with all of Ohio's 18 electoral votes and a total of 303 electoral votes to 206 for Mitt Romney, the presidential nominee for the Republican Party. And after mustering a political machine fueled by a  diverse coalition of minorities, women and youth voters that flocked to the polls, he won the popular vote 51 percent to Romney's 48 percent.

Eleventh Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, the only Black in Congress from Ohio, told Cleveland Urban News.Com after Tuesday's election that Ohioans came through for the president and that Obama will come through for Ohioans.

"Ohioans delivered and I believe President Obama will deliver for us," said Fudge, a Warrensville Hts. Democrat. "The President's re-election victory, despite all the money and misleading ads arrayed against him and deliberate efforts to suppress the vote among groups that supported him, is a triumph for democracy. We need the president's leadership to move our nation forward to confront the issues that matter to our community and  I look forward to the opportunity to work with the president in the coming term to focus on strengthening an economy that works for everyone."

Below President Barack Obama, the first Black President of The United States of America, gives his victory speech before a cheering crowd of thousands at his campaign headquarters in Chicago, Il. after winning a second term as president from American voters Tuesday night.

Obama's win did not come without a fight, a hard fought battle in fact, and one that was unprecedented, and what the president said during his victory speech was the toughest Democratic presidential campaign in American history.

Less than a month before the November election the U.S. Supreme refused to hear and let stand a decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that affirmed an order issued by Federal District Judge Peter Economus in conjunction with a lawsuit filed by the Obama for America Campaign on early voting. Economus' ruling struck down a state law passed by the Republican controlled Ohio State Legislature last year that precluded early voting three days before the election as unconstitutional.

The racist billboards at issue threatened a felony, a $10,000 fine and prison to poor people and people of color in communities in Cleveland and Milwaukee and other places in Ohio including the cities of Columbus and Cincinnati.

Then a junior senator from Illinois who beat former New York senator and  now US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in a heated Democratic primary, Obama went on to defeat Arizona Senator Republican Presidential nominee John McCain to win his first term in 2008.

Romney lost the Republican primary to McCain in 2008 and Obama beat McCain with ease during the general election that year.

Obama was gracious in victory towards McCain and towards Romney.

Romney was just as diplomatic and said in his concession speech that Obama ran a good race, and that his supporters and his campaign, and his family, all deserve congratulations.

"I wish them all well, but particularly the president, and the first lady and their daughters,” said Romney.

The nation’s 44th president, Obama won key battleground states throughout the night including Ohio, an election victory that came on the heels of a well orchestrated campaign governed by some of the nation’s most astute and talented political strategists such as David Axelrod and Broderick Johnson, not to mention Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president and his assistant for public engagement and intergovernmental affairs.

The president's campaign was grassroots and big time, just as it was in 2008. And he had the big gun Democrats in Ohio on his team, including Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, former Gov. Ted Strickland and former First Lady Frances Strickland, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern, and Stuart Garson, the chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.

He also had a premier campaign media team skilled in drawing attention from the media to cover campaign events, many that showed the president's brilliance as an orator.

And the president knew how to make even little people feel good, often stressing in his campaign speeches that he is everybody's president.

Other Black elected officials that represent constituents of Cleveland, a major metropolitan largely Black city, and played a major role in helping him win reelection, were happy for Obama too.

Below Obama supporters gathered Tuesday night to watch the election results trickle in at a watch party  at the ward club office of Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson on the predominantly Black east side of the major metropolitan city of Cleveland. From left Johnson, James Box,  Ohio State Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10), George Edwards, Vicki Acquah, Jahlil Muhammad,  and Cleveland Attorney Michael Nelson Sr.

“I am very excited for another four years,” said Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson at a victory party held at his ward club office and one of many held locally and nationally.  “I am delighted that the president has won a second term.”

State Representative Bill Patmon, who attended the Ward 8 victory party in the Glenville community on Cleveland’s east side, said that Obama's win will have a long reaching impact on the Black community, and that Black America is comfortable with his leadership and appreciative of his sensitivity to the issues that Black Americans routinely face.

"The president's story is known well in our community ” Patmon said. "He comes from a broken home, his mother died young and he was raised by grandparents That sounds like so many stories told on the east side of Cleveland."

A billionaire and former Massachusetts governor, Romney had tried to paint Obama as a president who has led the country in the wrong direction through irresponsible fiscal policies and a lack of leadership. But voters didn't buy it. Nor did they fall for his plan to cut taxes for the rich on the backs of the middle class and the poor.

Many Blacks agreed that the country could not have afforded to go backwards with Romney, and that Obama has created more jobs, and has pulled America from the rubbish left by the failed economic policies of the George W. Bush administration.

“Now that President Obama has won, we'll have four more years of moving in the right direction, improving the economy, and continuing initiatives to help the middle class and the poor," said Cuyahoga County Councilman Julian Rogers (D-10).

The first family takes the stage Tuesday night in Chicago, IL after Barack Obama won a second term as president

The first Black children to reside in the White House Obama commended his daughters Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, as smart, beautiful young girls, after telling America how much he loves First Lady Michelle Obama.

“Let me say this publicly,” said Obama, “Michelle, I have never loved you more.  I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you too as our nation’s first lady.”

A graduate of Harvard University Law School and a constitutional attorney, Obama chose to fore go lucrative jobs on Wall Street and in the corporate sector to become a community organizer on the streets on the south side of Chicago, which ultimately took him to the Illinois State Senate, and then to the U.S. Senate.

His candidacy for president for 2008 and his run for reelection this year were both endorsed by prominent Blacks such as singers Stevie Wonder and John Legend, rapper Jay-Z, Actress Viva Fox, and Republican Colin Powell, the first Black U.S. Secretary of State, who served under former president George W. Bush, and the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Turner, a Cleveland Democrat who was the council person in Ward 1 before becoming one of two Black state senators from Cleveland along with state Sen. Shirley Smith (D-25), is an  Obama delegate like Councilman Johnson, and both are  among the 13 Black Obama delegates from Ohio's  11th Congressional District.

Turner is ambitious, and articulate. She made national television appearances on CNN and MSNBC in support of Obama, and campaigned for the president, and so did many other Democrats of Cuyahoga County, including Fudge, who has led the predominantly Black 11 congressional district since 2008.

“Cuyahoga County is the most important voting block in Ohio,” said Turner at a victory party sponsored and paid for by the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party at the Double Tree Hotel in downtown Cleveland Tuesday night.

Cuyahoga County, which includes the city of Cleveland, is Ohio's largest, and a Democratic stronghold. It is roughly 30 percent Black and what political pundits call a political gem for Democratic candidates.

Turner even held a sleepover at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on Oct. 2 to bring attention to the first day of early voting in Ohio and a host of other Black elected officials, including Fudge and Smith, sponsored similar events to bring out the Black vote, and that they did.

Obama won Cuyahoga County with 68 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

State Rep. John Barnes Jr. (D-12), a Cleveland Democrat and Obama delegate,  said that "the president was on his A game throughout the campaign."

Black preachers of Cleveland like the Rev Larry Harris Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church, Bishop Eugene Ward, the Rev. Dr. E.T. Caviness, Bishop Eugene Ward and Bishop Tony Minor who head The United Pastors in Mission, the most influential Black group of clergy in greater Cleveland, also rallied to the president, holding church rallies, taking bus loads to voting centers to vote early, and preaching sermons to their congregations

Everyday people in Cleveland could feel an attachment to Obama’s victory too.

“I’m 79 years old and I will continue to support President Obama with every inch of my body,” said Cleveland Ward 8 resident George Edwards.

Joan Washington, 80, a Cleveland Ward 1 resident still active in politics who marched with the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and said she knew Malcolm X, said that Obama is a role model for the Black community, and a dream come true.

“I support President Obama because he is a Black man and a godsend, and I never thought I would live to see a Black person in the White House," said Washington.

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