Fifty years ago, he was denied service at a Reno lunch counter. On Tuesday night, the Vice-President of the local NAACP chapter watched an African-American win the presidency.

Reverend Onie Cooper said he never dreamed he would ever live to see the day, but after fighting for civil rights his entire life, the 83-year-old finally got a chance to celebrate.

"It's hard for me to explain," said Cooper. "A man that's been around as long as I have. I'm just as happy as if he was my own son."

It was quite possibly the greatest moment for a World War II veteran known as Mr. Civil Rights. Reverend Cooper still remembers protesting at Reno lunch counters that refused to serve him. He says those very struggles and pioneers like Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr helped pave the way for Barack Obama.

"If it hadn't been for each one of them, I don't think we'd be here right now," Cooper said. "But it's been work, work, work. Little by little. Every time you chopped down a tree, that's one more tree you didn't have to be worrying about being in your way."

Cooper came to Reno in 1949. Then, it was a place he called the "Mississippi of the West" because of its discrimination during that time. But after watching Washoe County back a black man for president some fifty years later, he's confident that national unity is in our future.

"I'll tell you Obama. He's the man for today; not just for black folks, but for everybody."