Former secretary of state Colin Powell visited Minneapolis Monday and spoke about the tremendous accomplishment of Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, as a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the AP reported.

Powell spoke at a breakfast event hosted by the General Mills Foundation and the United Negro College Fund, and recounted how he reacted when Obama won the presidency. “I’ll never forget the words that came to me. And the words that I whispered to an empty room: My God, we did it. We did it.”

Colin Powell and Barack Obama (AP photo)

Powell, who was the nation’s first black secretary of state, also talked about how Obama was elected not because of his skin color, but because of his qualifications. “What a tribute to our country, what a tribute to our system, what a tribute to the memory of the man we are honoring today — a man who said he wanted his children to be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” Powell said. Barack Obama will be inaugurated on Tuesday, with festivities scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. (Central time).