NEWS
GOOD PEOPLE
HISTORY
LIFE HACKS
THE PLANET
SCIENCE & TECH
POLITICS
WHOLESOME
WORK & MONEY
About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy
GOOD is part of GOOD Worldwide Inc.
publishing family.
© GOOD Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Obama: The Race Speech

After mostly avoiding the issue of race during his campaign, Barack Obama chose the controversial topic to be the thrust of an address this...




After mostly avoiding the issue of race during his campaign, Barack Obama chose the controversial topic to be the thrust of an address this morning in Philadelphia. The highly-anticipated speech comes on the heels of racially-charged statements by Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, comments that the Senator spent the weekend distancing himself from.

In the address, Obama said that being the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas is "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."

In addition, he said, "race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now."

Bookending his speech with a discussion of the Constitution-a document "stained by this nation's original sin of slavery" and signed in Philadelphia-Obama at last took on the elephant that's been hanging around the room during the entire campaign.

The Huffington Post has the full text of the speech available.









More Stories on Good