Barack Obama's rise to the presidency of the United States is something local African Americans who lived through segregation and the civil rights movement never imagined would happen in their lifetime.

"Oh no," Exa Madison said. "I didn't even think it would be possible this time."

Madison remembers the time when she wasn't allowed to eat lunch with white shoppers at the Diamond Department store's lunch counter. She remembers the days when she had to sit in the back of the bus. For her friend and neighbor Richard Saunders, those days bring up feelings of pain.

"It is the hurt feeling that I couldn't do what the other kids could do," Saunders said.

But now, both say Obama's election ushers in a sense of hope, not for their generation but for the generation to come.

"President-elect Obama means that my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, it means they have a better future." Madison said.