Nurney Mason (C) of Washington, DC, sits alongside customers in his son's barbershop after they discussed the historic candidacy of presumptive US Democratic presidential nominee Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the first African-American major party presidential candidate in US history, at Mason's Hair Gallery, a barbershop and hair salon, in Washington on July 12, 2008. Mason opened his barbershop in 1961, and since then he has witnessed a lifetime of changes outside his window on H Street in the US capital's northeast section of town. But he'd like to see more. "I think he's it," says Mason, describing Barack Obama's bid to become America's first black president as "something ordained from above." AFP PHOTO/Saul LOEB