U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) supporters Mary Decker (C), Annete Davis (L) and others celebrate as his win of the presidential election is announced November 4, 2008 in Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham, along with Selma and Montgomery, were touchstones in the civil rights movement where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led massive protests which eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ending voter disfranchisement against African-Americans. Americans voted in the first presidential election featuring an African-American candidate, Democratic contender Sen. Barack Obama, who ran against Republican Sen. John McCain.