Of all the moving images that flashed across the world's TV screens last night, the one that will stick with me would have been considered corny were it the last scene of a Hollywood biopic.

Imagine if and when there's a "Jesse Jackson Story". The film would trace the civil rights warrior from youth, through the turbulent '60s - including the motel balcony on which Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered with Jackson among those at his side. It would then enter Jackson's political period, in which he made a short run at the presidency. Finally, there'd be the new generation of African Americans and African American leaders, with Jackson being edged off-stage. That last scene would be the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States. And there, in the crowd, just a spectator along with tens of thousands of others, would be Jesse Jackson, American flag in hand and tears in his eyes as a black man ascends to the presidency, something he likely never thought he'd see in his lifetime. Cue the closing credits.

Yet this was no movie on TV last night. There he was in Chicago's Grant Park, with that flag and those tears. It would have been too syrupy for the big screen except for one thing: it really happened.

A lasting snapshot from an historic night.