The day after Sen. Barack Obama (D-NY) secured enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee for president of the United States, national and local media raced out – pardon the play on words –  to do the most obvious story possible:  What do black people think about this historic moment?

That’s a relevant story, but it’s also one that missed the overall significance of what voters around this nation have done over the past six months. Even moreso, what he accomplished in a nation that just 50 short years ago prevented many blacks from eating, riding and living in the same community as whites.  

Sure, they’ll be much debate about whether Obama can rally women, lower-income and Hispanic voters, but at the end of the day it was not just ‘black pride’ that got Obama the nomination, but a groundswell of support of white voters who were inspired by his message.  In primary after primary, Obama garnered a majority of the support from first-time voters, and while he got the majority of the black votes in many regions of the country, the reality is that alone would not have pushed him over the top.

What’s going to vitally important is that the media must avoid calling Obama the ‘black candidate’ because that’s just fueling the hate-mongering that will not just bubble up to the surface, but will probably explode by the time we get to late October. 

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson punctuates Obama’s victory as one that overcame obstacles set in 1619 when some of the first African slaves were brought to this country.  He describes a scene during the Iowa primary when thousands of white supporters crowded into high school gymnasiums to participate in the caucus.

Then there’s the basic dollars and cents fact of how the Obama machine has raised a record $270 million, which according to opensecrets.org is about an average $1 million a day.  That’s not a racial issue, that’s a powerful movement that clearly overcame a huge political machine become one of the most fascinating stories in American history – not just Black history.