Sen. Barack Obama.

Larry Eichel reports: 

The scene is quite the zoo at the National Constitution Center where Barack Obama is about to give a speech that shapes up as one of the most important of his campaign. His subject -- race, politics, and national unity. The speech comes, of course, in the wake of the controversy over the past remarks of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. The event is being held in the center's auditorium, which only seats about 250 people. There's a huge crowd of reporters here trying to get in, There's talk that even the overflow room may not be big enough for everyone who wants to cover the talk. And there are a few invited guests, although we haven't seen many of them yet. It appears that former Pennsylvania Sen. Harris Wofford, a veteran of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and an Obama supporter, is going to introduce the candidate.

You know this is a big deal, Michelle Obama is here, sitting in the front row. They almost always campaign separately, as do the Clinton. 

Wofford's prepared introductory remarks include the following: "We've waited a long time for a leader whom the country needs as badly as we needed John Kennedy in 1960 and Robert Kennedy in 1968. And today, I'm more convinced than ever that Barack Obama is that leader." 

The speech hasn't started yet. Among the faces in the crowd are state Sen. Anthony Williams, Philadelphia City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, City Councilman Bill Green, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy.

We've seen the embargoed text of the speech. I can tell you that it's long, thoughtful, very personal, and deals with the issues connected to Rev. Wright in depth. It's almost showtime.

Harris Wofford is giving his intro, He calls Obama "an original." Said Wofford: "Originals of this kind don't come along often -- maybe once every few generations. They come when they are needed most. And when I heard Barack Obama speak at the Democratic Convention in 2004, I saw him as such an original."

Obama has taken the stage. He begins the way one might expect, with a tribute to the Constitution and the setting, noting how the founders and successive generations struggled with the institution of slavery and the issue of race. And he talks about his own personal story, "the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas...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..."

Then he gets to the subject at hand.

"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."  

Now, he turns to the question on the minds of many voters. Why would someone like Barack Obama associate himself with someone like Rev. Wright? His answer: Wright introduced him to Christianity and, he says, has done many good works.

"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."

Obama says he's addressing the issue of race because it's essential to today's America, not just to the fate of his own candidacy. And he says to understand this country, you have to understand the history of race in America, going back to slavery, segregation and legalized discrimination -- and all of the their lingering effects.

"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."

And he says he understands the racial resentments felt in the white community.

"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."

As he has since he started to run for president, Obama frames his candidacy as a path to a better future, as a way out of what he calls a racial stalemate.

"Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve 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 is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union."  


Obama says that blacks must take more responsibility for their own lives and see their struggles as similar to those of many Americans who are not black. Then, back to Rev. Wright.

"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 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."

Whites, he says, must understand that life is not a zero-sum games, that moves to help minorities make the society better for everyone.

And he says, America must move beyond Rev. Wright and Geraldine Ferraro and focus on what he calls the real issues, such as crumbling schools, people who don't have health care, the lost jobs, the home foreclosure crisis, jobs shipped overseas, and the war in Iraq.

He concludes with an anecdote from his South Carolina campaign about whites and blacks coming together.

"It is," Obama says, "where we start."

And it's where this speech ends.

He leaves the stage at about 11:30 a.m.