The world's biggest party: Millions take to the streets to Celebrates Obama Victory

It was the extraordinary night which saw Barack Obama make history.

And after the most hotly-fought campaign in living memory, days of votes and hours of queues, Americans black and white took to the street to celebrate his landslide victory.

Towns and cities across the country were filled with the honking of horns, screams of joy, arms lifted skywards - and memories of civil rights struggles past.

Victory: 100,000 people crammed into Grant Park, Chicago to greet U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama

Chicago became the biggest open-air party in the world today as people flooded the streets to celebrate.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans streamed into the avenues, parks, hotels and bars, filling the air with cheers.

They held hands, hugged each other and danced with joy while television sets and giant screens showed the votes piling up.

'Yes we did! Yes we did!' chanted groups of door-knockers, updating their campaign slogan Yes We Can.

At the heart of the partying was Grant Park, which last saw this kind of hysteria when a Papal Mass was held in 1979.

Stars such as Brad Pitt and Oprah Winfrey could be glimpsed in a sea of 125,000 inside the park, all waiting for the president-elect to give his first speech.

Result: Supporters in Times Square, New York, hear Mr Obama has won (above) while revellers in Harlem seem overwhelmed

When the park was deemed full, just as many packed along Michigan Avenue and squeezed around TVs in hotel foyers.

'This is absolutely historic, unbelievable - incredible, for America, for the whole world,' said Atukwe Newell, 30.

In the true spirit of free enterprise, Obama-Biden car stickers that were being given away free a day ago were being sold in the street for $5 each.

T-shirts with the legend "Grant Park 08  -  i was there" were selling like hot cakes.

'Jeez, they are calling Pennsylvania already  -  it must be big,' said a shirt vendor, his ear pressed to a radio.

No alcohol was allowed in the park but people were getting drunk on joy.

'it's just about the most exciting thing in my lifetime,' said Winfrey.

Film director Spike Lee said: 'I'm just happy to be here  -  to witness it with my own eyeballs.'

This has been a long time coming,' said Linda Bogard, 57, who wore a bright orange vest and matching baseball hat studded with rhinestones spelling 'Obama'.

'It's been a good fight and a great victory.'

In Washington, DC, hundreds of residents spilled into the streets near the White House, carrying balloons, banging on drums and chanting 'Bush is gone!'

Along U Street, once known as America's Black Broadway for its thriving black-owned shops and theatres , men stood on car roofs, waving American flags and Obama posters.

Nearby, at historically black Howard University, hundreds of students erupted in cheers, broke into song and chanted, 'Yes, we did!'

'To be so young and have a voice in this election means a lot,' said Najauna Muschetta, who was celebrating her 19th birthday.

Elsewhere, there were smaller, quieter celebrations.

He said he was hardly able to believe that 40 years after he was left beaten and bloody on an Alabama bridge as he marched for the right for blacks to vote, he had cast a ballot for Obama.

'This is a great night,' he said. 'It is an unbelievable night. It is a night of thanksgiving.'

As the news of a projected Obama victory flashed across a TV screen, men in the nearly all-black crowd pumped their fists and bowed their heads.

Women wept as they embraced their children, and many in the crowd high-fived and raised their arms.

Screams of 'Thank you, Lord!' were heard throughout the sanctuary as the Rev. Al Sharpton took the stage with his arms raised in victory.

'At this hour, many of us never, ever, even until the last days, felt that we would ever see this,' he told the cheering crowd. 'We are grateful to those who paid the price.'

The audience joined hands as the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer led a prayer for the president-elect before singing 'Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing,' which is regarded as the black national anthem.

'Sisters and brothers, it looks like we have moved from Bloody Sunday to Triumphant Tuesday,' Warnock said, referring to the Alabama march led by Lewis that was violently suppressed but sparked support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

'It's morning in America.'

Martin Luther King III told the crowd that history was being made.

'Our father used to say that a voteless people is a powerless people,' he said.

'Something different happened in this election cycle.'

Surveying the scene, Mattie Bridgewater whispered from her seat, 'I just can't believe it. Not in my lifetime.'

Bridgewater said she went to the same elementary school as Emmett Till, the boy from Chicago whose murder in Mississippi was one of the catalysts of the civil rights movement.

Both she and her 92-year-old mother, who still lives in Chicago, voted for Obama.

'I'm sitting here in awe,' she said. 'This is a moment in history that I just thank my God I was allowed to live long enough to see. Now, when I tell my students they can be anything they want to be, that includes president of the United States.'

The scene in Phoenix, Arizona, where loser John McCain held his election night rally, was grim.

Some supporters stood with arms crossed,  anger etched on their faces.

Others expressed disappointment, even fear.

Shattered dreams: Mr McCain (centre left) greets running mate Mrs Palin with a kiss at the Arizona election night rally. The pair are flanked by Mr McCain's wife Cindy and Mrs Palin's husband Todd

Still others wiped away tears and grumbled when John McCain congratulated his opponent, America's first black president, for making history.

And it was clear on an election night like no other that the hard feelings of a hard-fought campaign would not fade anytime soon.
Jeri Mott, 58, of Tucson, listened to McCain's concession speech with her arms tightly crossed and a look of disgust on her face.

'I'm thinking that I'm real worried about what's going to happen tomorrow, especially about my troops,' said Mott, whose son recently enlisted in the Army.

As for the historic nature of the night, Mott didn't much care.

'I have no problem with an African American at the helm. It's his vision of what he wants to do that I have a big problem with.'

The night began appropriately enough with Elton John's 'I'm Still Standing' booming from the speakers at the Arizona resort where, 28 years ago, McCain and his wife, Cindy, celebrated their wedding.

Hundreds of supporters wore buttons and T-shirts proclaiming 'Victory 2008,' chanted McCain's name and, like the candidate they gathered to honor, projected optimism and faith.

But as the night wore on, organizers temporarily stopped broadcasting the returns overhead and announced few results, as if not to put a damper on the party.

Those they did disclose lagged behind national projections showing Obama gaining on McCain.

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