Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/obama-breaks-political-ground-en-route-to-nomination Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Sen. Barack Obama claimed victory Tuesday in the Democratic nominating battle, poising himself to become the first black presidential candidate to compete in a general election for a major political party. Historians and analysts discuss Obama's history-making moment. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: When Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination last night, he instantly added a new page to the nation's history books. For more on the significance of this turn of political events, we are joined by Peniel Joseph, professor of history and African-American studies at Brandeis University. He is the author of "Waiting 'til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America."Maria Echaveste, lecturer in residence at the University of California at Berkeley Law School, she served as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff in the Bill Clinton White House.And House Majority Whip James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress. He endorsed Barack Obama only yesterday.Professor Joseph, I want to start by talking a little bit about the history. It seems like a lot of new ground was broken, race and gender. History was made. Did it change things? PENIEL JOSEPH, Brandeis University: Certainly. This is an extraordinary moment in American history and, really, a deep progression of American democracy, having the first African-American presidential candidate in a country where, just 43 years ago, the president, another Democrat, signed a Voting Rights Act that he said, basically, gave away the South for a generation because of the racial divisions that we perceived.