'It's really refreshing to actually be able to witness history unfolding like this,' Chamillionaire says of candidate's DNC address in Denver.
By Jocelyn Vena

Barack Obama in Denver on Thursday
Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/Getty Images

On Thursday night in Denver, Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama accepted his party's nomination with a historic speech. The address, which took place 45 years after Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, left the Illinois senator's high-profile supporters in awe.

"The imagery and the message behind Obama's speech was more powerful than any that I have ever seen in my lifetime," Chamillionaire told MTV News. "It's really refreshing to actually be able to witness history unfolding like this."

It was a sentiment shared by many of the other celebrities and regular folks who heard what Obama had to say. "[It was] a complete inspiration. I have high hopes for our next president," All-American Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter said.

Meanwhile, longtime Obama supporter Oprah Winfrey told the press after Obama finished his speech that "I cried my eyelashes off. I think it's the most powerful thing I have ever experienced." She added: "He's not an African-American candidate. He's a candidate for Americans."

Pete Wentz summed it up in his MTV Newsroom live-blog entry: "It's strange to get the feeling that you will remember the exact moment and place you were sitting when someone gives a speech."

Also backstage after the speech was Kanye West, who said, according to several media accounts, "It changed my life." Earlier in the week, Kanye admitted that he wished his late mother, Donda West, could have been around to see Obama's historic presidential run. "It's an incredible time to be around. I wish my momma could have seen this day."

"I've never gotten so many chills in my life," Fall Out Boy guitarist Joe Trohman told MTV News. "There's the chills you get from hearing an incredible melody in a song, from seeing the best movie you've ever seen in your life, but this was something different. I don't want to this to sound like a joke, but Obama has coin face. His face will look amazing on a silver dollar. And I want to be spending that silver dollar."

His bandmate Patrick Stump appreciated Obama's honesty and integrity in the speech. "He talks about hope, but he actually delivers. He has supports, facts, figures and the ba--s to say it all at the risk of his political standing," he said. "His speeches convince me that he is an honest politician, possibly the first in a desperately long time."

During MTV News' live blog of Obama's speech, Kenna declared Obama the winner after hearing his moving speech about bringing change to Washington: "There is going to be a paradigm shift in the world as we know it. He just won."

Don't miss out on the action: MTV News and our Street Team '08 will be on the ground at the Republican National Convention to sort through all the speeches, streamers and ceremony and find the information you need to choose our next president. Head to Choose or Lose for nonstop coverage of the 2008 presidential election. And after history is made in Denver, MTV News will help you make sense of it all in "Obama Decoded," premiering Friday, August 29 at 7:30 p.m. ET.

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• The 2008 Democratic National Convention

• Kanye West
• Fall Out Boy
• Chamillionaire
• The All-American Rejects