WASHINGTON: Democrat Barack Obama wrote his name indelibly into the pages of American history on November 4, engineering a social and political upheaval to become the first black president-elect of US in a runaway victory over Republican John McCain. The 47-year-old Illinois senator, son of a white mother from Kansas and an African father from Kenya, mined a deep vein of national discontent, promising Americans hope and change throughout a nearly flawless 21-month campaign for the White House. The powerful orator lays claim to the White House on January 20, only 43 years after the country enacted a law that banned the disenfranchisement of blacks in many Southern states where poll taxes and literacy tests were common.