AN HISTORIC SPEECH
A More Perfect Union
The Audacity of Hope
Remarks
of Senator Barack Obama
Philadelphia, PA
March 18, 2008
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands
across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple
words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers
and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an
ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their
declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted
through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately
unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery,
a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention
to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade
to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final
resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded
within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core
the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that
promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could
be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves
from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed
their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States.
What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who
were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on
the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience
and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise
of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this
campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us,
a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and
more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this
moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve
the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless
we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different
stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same
and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to
move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children
and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity
of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.
I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a
Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white
grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth
while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in
America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married
to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and
slave owners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters.
I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of
every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and
for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country
on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate.
But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea
that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of
many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions
to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for
this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy
through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states
with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina,
where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition
of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign.
At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed
me either "too black" or "not black enough."
We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before
the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll
for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms
of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion
of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my
candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's
based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial
reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former
pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express
views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide,
but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of
our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of
Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging
questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic
of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course.
Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial
while I sat in church? Yes.
Did I strongly
disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as
I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests,
or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply
controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to
speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a
profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white
racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America
above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the
conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions
of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse
and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive,
divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time
when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems
- two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health
care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems
that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems
that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals,
there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation
are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the
first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess
that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of
those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television
and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to
the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no
doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man
I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me
to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations
to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor.
He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied
and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in
the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves
the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the
homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services
and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those
suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience
of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and
cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the
rafters. And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else;
at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across
the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging
with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians
in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories -
of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story;
the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until
this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel
carrying the story of a people into future generations and into
a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and
universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey,
the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we
didn't need to feel shame about ... memories that all people might
study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly
black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community
in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student
and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's
services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor.
They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that
may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full
the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking
ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness
and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright.
As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened
my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once
in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic
group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted
with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the
contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he
has served diligently for so many years.
I can no
more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no
more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped
raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman
who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a
woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her
on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial
or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this
country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that
are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the
politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and
just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend
Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine
Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring
some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to
ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend
Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify
and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts
reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues
that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities
of race in this country that we've never really worked through -
a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk
away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will
never be able to come together and solve challenges like health
care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived
at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't
dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need
to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country.
But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities
that exist in the African-American community today can be directly
traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that
suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't
fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the
inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the
pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through
violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American
business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages,
or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire
departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful
wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain
the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated
pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and
rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and
frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family,
contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare
policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic
services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to
play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building
code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight
and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans
of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties
and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of
the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's
remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination,
but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were
able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come
after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece
of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those
who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.
That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those
young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street
corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects
for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions
of race, and racism, continue to define their world view in fundamental
ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the
memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor
has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may
not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white
friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the
kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians,
to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's
own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning,
in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are
surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons
simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour
in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always
productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving
real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity
in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from
forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the
anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn
it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm
of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community.
Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they
have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience
is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's
handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked
hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped
overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They
are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping
away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity
comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at
my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school
across town; when they hear that an African American is getting
an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because
of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're
told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow
prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't
always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the
political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare
and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians
routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends.
Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers
unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions
of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness
or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these
white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of
the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside
dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed;
a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic
policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away
the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or
even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate
concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path
to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been
stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics,
black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we
can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle,
or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect
as my own.
But I have
asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in
God and my faith in the American people - that working together
we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact
we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect
union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the
burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means
continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect
of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances
- for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs -
to the larger aspirations of all Americans - the white woman struggling
to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the
immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility
for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending
more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them
that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their
own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they
must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative
- notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's
sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand
is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief
that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he
spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our
society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this
country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own
members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition
of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old
-- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know
- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is the true
genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope
- the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging
that what ails the African-American community does not just exist
in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination
- and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than
in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words,
but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities;
by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our
criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders
of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It
requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to
come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health,
welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will
ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing
less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we
do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's
keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us
find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics
reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that
breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race
only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of
tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for
the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every
channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election,
and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American
people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most
offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter
as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate
on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general
election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be
talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And
then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can
come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want
to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future
of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic
children and Native American children. This time we want to reject
the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those
kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children
of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not
let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room
are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have
health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the
special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we
do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided
a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for
sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every
region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the
fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look
like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work
for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color
and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together
under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them
home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've
been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism
by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits
they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all
my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for
this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after
generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today,
whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility,
what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people
whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already
made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with
today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on
Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley
Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina.
She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community
since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable
discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why
they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got
cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go
and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's
when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so
Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really
wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches.
Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone
at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so
that she could help the millions of other children in the country
who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody
told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems
were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics
who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She
sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room
and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They
all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific
issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been
sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's
there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say
health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war.
He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply
says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment
of recognition between that young white girl and that old black
man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick,
or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger.
And as so many generations have come to realize over the course
of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots
signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection
begins. --
Obama's long form birth certificate
A young Barack Obama and his mother
Michelle, Malia, Barack and Sasha Obama 2012
Barack, Sasha, Michelle, and Malia Obama 2012
His way to the 'top'
BARACK OBAMA ON RELIGION
For my mother,
organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the
garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness.
This isn’t to say that she provided me with no religious instruction.
In her mind, a working knowledge of the world’s great religions
was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household
the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside
books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter or Christmas
Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to
the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto
shrine, and the ancient Hawaiian burial sites. But I was made to
understand that such religious samplings required no sustained commitment
on my part. Religion was an expression of human culture, she would
explain, not its wellspring, just the one of many ways – and
not necessarily the best way – that man attempted to control
the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives.
In sum, my mother viewed religion through the eyes of the anthropologist
she would become; it was a phenomenon to be treated with a suitable
respect, but with suitable detachment as well. --
Barack
Obama: Follow Me
Think about it...
From 1789 to 2009
only one African American
out of the forty-four POTUS
and even fewer First Americans.