The long journey

Barack Obama, left, who has been elected the first black President of the United States. Right, a former slave called Peter reveals the scars from a savage whipping. The photograph was taken in 1863 after he escaped a plantation in the southern slave states to become a Union soldier in the American Civil War. It was two years before Illinois – Obama's home state – became the first to ratify Abraham Lincoln's 13th Amendment and officially outlaw slavery.