By Karon Majeel

The line wound around the block, and there was “nothing’ but love” as hundreds gathered to see Illinois Sen. Barack Obama enter the Sherman Street Event Center on March 28.

Inside, Denver ’s Starlights Drill Team took the stage. The crowd clapped, marched in place and chanted “Obama!” “Obama!” “Obama!” State Sen. Peter Groff opened the program, and in keeping with the Event Center’s history as a former Masonic Temple, he held church.

Groff began a call/response liturgy with the mostly young, mostly white crowd that would have made his minister wife (Rev. Regina Groff, Campbell A.M.E church) proud. He congratulated the “congregation” on their victories at the polls in 2004 and 2006; turning a once Republican red state purple by electing, respectively, a Democratic U.S. senator and a Democratic governor.

“Now are you ready to take this state all the way blue and elect the next president of the United States, Barack Obama?” he challenged, and instantaneously more than 500 voices blended with the strength of a thousand.

Obama took center stage in front of an American flag back drop. The decibel level in the room went off the charts.

“I’m always fired up when I’m a mile high,” proclaimed the 45-year-old junior senator. “I’m excited and grateful for this opportunity to speak to you, but I promise to keep this speech short.”

His loyal supporters quickly – and loudly – gave him permission to speak as long as he wanted and remain with them as long as he could. Obama wasted no time assuring fans and skeptics alike that he was running to win.

“We’re here because the country calls us, as we face challenges as significant as any in our nation’s history,” he said.

Obama then addressed his critics’ claims that he lacks the experience to lead the nation.

“I have plenty of the experience that counts,” he said, citing his years in Chicago as a grassroots community organizer and his service in the Illinois state legislature. “No, I haven’t been in Washington, D.C. too long, but I’ve been there long enough to know Washington needs to change.”

During his 30-minute speech, Obama outlined his platform for the 2008 election. He vowed to strengthen America overseas, end the Iraq war; clean up Washington’s “culture of corruption,” pursue a comprehensive national energy policy, honor the nation’s veterans, protect our homeland, strengthen families and communities, protect the right to vote, and reconcile faith and politics. He pledged to improve education, while improving pay and working conditions for teachers. He committed to offer affordable housing and health care to all Americans, invoking the memory of John F. Kennedy’s NASA pledge to put a man on the moon and make seemingly impossible dreams a reality.

By the time Obama had dismissed his flock something had changed. They’d witnessed a man transcend beyond and into the realm of anointing. They walked away thinking they had just been blessed.