Chicago  - African-Americans wept and hugged as the diverse crowd in Chicago's Grant Park erupted with joy at the news that Barack Obama would be the nation's first black president.

But the roar that went up from the 65,000 people admitted to the official rally quickly subsided into reverence and awe as the Illinois senator began to speak.

The ovations and cheers that punctuated Obama's speech were more in the worship style of an African-American church than a raucous victory rally for the next president of the United States of America.

Several women in the crowd waved their hands and called out "That's right" and "Thank God for that" as he spoke; other supporters mostly listened in rapt attention and nodded along.

The nearly religious atmosphere was echoed by many of the African- Americans in the crowd who saw in Obama's rise not just the culmination of the civil rights movement, but the intervention of a higher power.

Dorothy Taylor, a 49-year-old community organizer, called Obama's victory "a miracle" and shed tears as she contemplated the meaning of Tuesday's outcome.

"We can be a better people. We can," she said. "I'm just the third generation away from slavery. We couldn't even vote when I was born."

Cynthia Peterson, who attended the rally with Taylor, contrasted her own doubts - that a black man could ever be elected president - with Taylor's faith in the candidate from the start of Obama's campaign.

"She said this is an act of God," Peterson said.

Nearby, Sheila Scott danced and waved an American flag as the rally concluded. Though she had always voted, she had never before felt compelled to get involved in a political campaign.

But this year she was moved to make calls for the campaign and even travelled to three Midwestern battleground states - Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana - to knock on doors, sometimes deep in Republican strongholds.

"God just put it on my heart to do this," Scott said.

Setting aside her religious references, she expressed tempered expectations for the new government - citing a faltering economy and global challenges - when Obama takes the oath of office on January 20.

"I don't know how much he can get done," Scott said, "but he will try. He really will."

Like the anonymous Obama supporters in the crowd, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson - a witness to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr - wept openly during the rally.

Himself a groundbreaking black candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination twice in the 1980s, Jackson later spoke to reporters and cited the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ban on racial segregation in public schools, which launched the modern civil rights movement: "After a 54-year marathon race, Barack ran the last lap." (dpa)