Washington - Barack Obama will take his oath as the country's first black president on January 20 under the shadow of Abraham Lincoln, the predecessor who opened the door to this historic breakthrough.

Whether by coincidence or fate, the country is celebrating Lincoln's 200th birthday this year. After Obama's election in November, the congressional committee organizing the inauguration lost little time in declaring that Lincoln would shape the event's theme as "A New Birth of Freedom."

Lincoln, who was born on February 12, 1809, is already a towering figure in US history as the president who ordered the emancipation of Southern slaves in 1863 - an act in the midst of the American Civil War, which rooted out slavery.

Lincoln continues to command a physical presence around the nation's capital. There's Ford's Theatre on 10th Street, now a national shrine, where he was assassinated in April 1865.

More visibly, the imposing Lincoln Memorial anchors one end of the 3-kilometre National Mall, while the Capitol building, where Congress meets and where Obama will be sworn in, anchors the other.

Next Tuesday, Lincoln's spirit will prevail as Obama, 47, whose election felled the final racial barrier for non-whites in the US, is inaugurated - on the steps of a building built with slave labour.

The phrase "A New Birth of Freedom" is taken from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the eloquent commemoration for the dead after the
1863 civil war battle of Gettysburg, the northernmost point of the Confederate invasion. Lincoln used the phrase as he ended his Gettysburg Address at the war cemetery in the southern Pennsylvania town, a speech that American school children still memorize.

After noting the "great task" ahead - the Civil War was only half over and would last another two years - Lincoln called for the country to take "increased devotion" to the cause for which the "honoured dead" had fought - "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Obama has already been compared to Lincoln throughout his election campaign. Both men came from the state of Illinois, having served in the Illinois General Assembly in Springfield, where Obama announced his candidacy in 2007.

They share physical qualities as tall, lanky figures. Gaining notice for their oratorical skills, they both rose rather quickly from relative obscurity in state politics to the White House.

Most importantly, like Lincoln, Obama enters the White House facing the perils of war and other immense upheavals, such as the financial meltdown that will dominate Obama's attention as he takes the presidential oath.

In keeping with the Lincoln theme, Obama plans to re-enact the last legs of Lincoln's 1861 inaugural train journey from Illinois. He'll board a train Saturday in Philadelphia, with stops in Wilmington, Delaware, and Baltimore, Maryland. On Sunday, the Lincoln Memorial will provide the backdrop for a free concert by Stevie Wonder, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen and other stars.

By tradition, significant themes prevail at inaugurations. In 2005, US President George Bush's second inauguration was guided by the theme "A Vision of America," which commemorated the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition reaching the Pacific.

At his victory speech in Chicago on November 4, Obama summoned his predecessor's ideals, recalling that Lincoln worked to heal a country divided by the passions of the war, and insisted that "our union can be perfected."

"To all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope," Obama said.

Eight months after Lincoln was killed, the country passed the 13th amendment to the US constitution to formally end slavery, followed by the 14th amendment (1868) to guarantee citizenship and equal rights and the 15th amendment (1870) to ensure voting rights.

Yet it took another century and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to start dismantling the racist barriers which continued to keep blacks from the ballot box across the US South and elsewhere. (dpa)