The United States marked a significant milestone Tuesday by electing its first black president.

Barack Obama's historic campaign for the White House would have been unthinkable not too long ago.

This election certainly doesn't mean that the country is 100 percent behind Obama. Some of his political stances and his personal beliefs are clearly too far “left” for many voters' liking, and he will have his work cut out for him to gain the trust - if not the respect - of the millions of voters who backed Republican John McCain, believing Obama to be too inexperienced to handle the job.

However his presidency as a whole turns out, Obama's victory is a victory for the promise that America can change for the better.

We must never forget that America's birth was intertwined with the suffering and basic human injustice of slavery.

And while blacks technically won the right to vote after the Civil War, they were still excluded from the process - especially in the South - by outright violence, threats of violence, and other barriers until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to use any means to stop blacks from voting.

And while Obama's victory doesn't mean that racism is a thing of the past in the United States, it indicates substantial progress.

Obama knows better than any of us that he will be more than just another U.S. president. He will be the first black president of the United States, a distinction that carries with it an enormous responsibility.

He has become a symbol of an evolving and growing country that has taken a huge step to put the sins of its past behind it.

And we'll be watching, along with the rest of the country, and, indeed, the rest of the world, to see where his leadership will take us.