CHICAGO – Cheering, screaming and weeping with joy, an estimated 50,000 Barack Obama supporters welcomed his election Tuesday night in a delirious victory celebration in the senator’s hometown.

Many had crammed into Grant Park to be a part of something that would be remembered for generations./p>

“I want her to be able to tell her children when history was made, she was there,” said Alnita Tillman, 50, who kept her 16-year-old daughter, Raven, out of school so they could be at the park by 8 a.m., more than 10 hours before the gates opened.

The crowd went wild with joy as the news that Obama would be the nation’s first black president flashed across jumbo TV screens in the park where Obama was to speak later that night. Many held both hands high up in the air, waved American flags, jumped up and down and cheered.

As Obama left his Hyde Park home in a motorcade, heading for the restivities, residents rushed out of their homes and lined the streets to wave, clap and cheer.

The downtown Chicago park – where police fought anti-war protesters during the turbulent 1968 Democratic convention – was transformed on an unseasonably balmy night by white tents and a stage lined with American flags and hung with red, white and blue bunting.

Lighted windows in the skyscrapers lining the park added to the festive atmosphere, spelling out “USA” and “Vote 2008.”

The crowd erupted in cheers each time an Obama victory was announced in another state.

The rally felt like a cross between an outdoor rock concert and a big family outing. Many people wore Obama T-shirts and buttons and ate pizza. By 9 p.m. several babies slept on their mothers’ chests. Other children snoozed in strollers.

In the crowd was Lisa Boon, 42, of Chicago, who said she burst into tears earlier in the day pondering what an Obama victory would mean.

Boon said her father was the cousin of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black Chicagoan who was abducted and killed in Mississippi in 1955, purportedly for whistling at a white woman.

“I was thinking of all the things done to Emmett and injustices to black people,” she said. “This is amazing, simply amazing.”

Stephanie Smith, 27, and her husband flew in from Nashville, Tenn., and staked out a spot on the sidewalk with folding chairs and a box of doughnuts early in the morning.

Even without tickets, Smith said it would be worth it to be standing in the park to hear the words, “Our next President of the United States is Barack Obama.”