The flags waved, "change" signs flapped, musicians strummed guitars, camera flashes twinkled like fireflies. Sen. Barack Obama, the first African-American to lead a major-party ticket, accepted the Democratic nomination for president of the United States Thursday night and stepped triumphantly into history.

"America, we cannot turn back, not with so much work to be done, not with so many children to educate and so many veterans to care for, not with an economy to fix, cities to rebuild and farms to save, not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend," Obama told a roaring throng of more than 84,000 packed in Invesco Field at Mile High football stadium on a temperate starry summer evening. "Americans, we cannot turn back."

Presidential nominee Barack Obama during his acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver surrounded by 84,000

The son of a Black Kenyan father and a white American mother is now one victory from becoming president of a nation where, just decades ago, many Blacks were denied the vote. 

Amid competing chants of "Obama!" and "Yes we can!" Obama's 44 minute speech mixed a  searing indictment of his Republican opponent and the Republican incumbent with Clintonesque personal touches and Reaganesque optimism, promising to repair "the broken politics of Washington" and preside over a more prosperous and equitable America.

In rousing remarks Obama said his life and candidacy embody the optimism of a colorblind America outlined in the Rev. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered 45 years to the day.

He sharply criticized Republican presidential candidate John McCain as a clone of President Bush who would continue failed policies of the past eight years. He laid out a domestic and foreign policy agenda of tax cuts for working families, ending U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil within a decade and finishing the Iraq war responsibly.

"Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats, Republicans and Independents across this great land - ‘We are a better country than this - eight years is enough!"

The speech, seen by a record 40 million viewers world wide, rode a line between policy and personal revelation, between high flown oratory and elbow grease appeals to the working class voters who have stubbornly eluded him throughout the campaign.