As you and every other citizen of this planet have heard by now, history was made on November 4, 2008.

It was made because a black man was elected to the highest office in the United States of America for the first time in our nation’s history. It was made because in the eyes of this nation’s citizens as well as all other nations’ citizens, we symbolically put a new face on America — a face that would have not so long ago symbolized our lack of freedom and equality, but now symbolizes just the opposite.

Whether you voted for Barack Obama, John McCain or maybe even yourself, you should rejoice in the response that the international community offered last night. We can no longer be looked at as a hypocritical nation that preaches freedom and equality abroad but has never truly accepted it at home.

While simply having a black president does not cure the racism and bigotry that so many of the attendants of the McCain-Palin rallies unfortunately demonstrated to our own nation and to the international community, the election of President Barack Obama is powerful beyond words.

There may be many Americans — and I, indeed, know a few — who watched their televisions in shock and awe; who yelled at their televisions, ‘this is America, where the presidents are white, male and wealthy;’ who might even hope that President Obama will fail America; who unfortunately may hope even worse.

Yet regardless of how much they disbelieve, yell, and hope, last night’s message — delivered to the world and every American — is clear: America is moving away from your closed-mindedness and your Constitution-hypocritical views. You are now the minority and your beliefs will end. Yes, the death of inherited bigotry is a slow one, but as generations pass, more and more of your progeny will choose to not accept your beliefs.

As this election night and the long campaign before it have displayed, this slow death has been occurring for decades. We youth turned out as we have never turned out before on Tuesday. Although not the case for all of us, a great number of us have parents, grandparents, or at least great-grandparents, who would never have voted for a black man, regardless of his political views, simply because of his race. Now, although this lack of rationality and equality may sadly still be the case for a minority of youth, it is not the case for the majority.

John McCain, in a truly dignified and honorable speech, let us know that it is not only youth who are now turning the page in American history. As I listened to his speech on election night, two sentences struck a chord. He stated that “America, today, is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.” The time that McCain recalled was when the majority of Americans were shocked and appalled that Theodore Roosevelt had invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House. That time, as McCain informed those ignorant Americans who continued to boo at the utterance of Obama, has passed. That time, he informed them, has no place in our nation’s future.

As McCain concluded, the time has now come “to find ways to come together to find necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.”

With rediscovered respect and admiration for John McCain, I believed that he could not have put the new direction of America into words any better.

As I watched Barack Obama’s acceptance speech later that night, I cried for the first time since my grandmother passed away two years ago. Yet I did not cry with the sadness of past fond memories; I cried with the hope of a better future for America, and with the sense that I have never been more proud to be an American.

— Steve Adams is a graduate student in pre-journalism and mass communication from Annapolis, Md.