A Law Review Breakthrough

Editor's note: In 1990, Globe reporter Linda Matchan and photographer Lane Turner interviewed 28-year-old Barack Obama, a Chicago community organizer who had just become the first African-American head of the Harvard Law Review. The following is an early glimpse of a rising star.

Barack Obama became the first black president of the influential Harvard Law Review last week, after a marathon 17-hour selection process that pitted him against 18 other candidates. But he says he felt the full significance of the honor only after a rival candidate, also black, embraced him.

"He held onto me for a long time," said Obama, 28, a second-year student at Harvard Law School. "It was an important moment for me, because with that embrace I realized my election was not about me, but it was about us, about what we could do and what we could accomplish."