One for the History Books

Something was missing from Barack Obama's landmark speech on race and religion in Philadelphia on Tuesday. It wasn't the American flag; there were four of them over his left shoulder, and four over his right. It wasn't a deep sense of patriotism either, given that he was speaking at the National Constitution Center, close to the Liberty Bell Center.

It was the sign that follows him to every event, stuck to the front of every podium, or propped on a bookcase behind him in every TV interview. The one that bears his campaign slogan: "Change We Can Believe In."

Maybe that's because this wasn't supposed to look or sound like a campaign event—even though the speech was one of the defining moments of his presidential run, rivaling his widely heralded victory addresses following his wins in Iowa and South Carolina. Philadelphia was the site of a momentum-shifting debate last fall, when Obama—aided by several other candidates—put Hillary Clinton on the defensive over her handling of the records of her years as First Lady, among other issues. Obama clearly hoped that his speech on race would similarly shift the momentum, which has been trending against him over the last few weeks, during a lull in the primary balloting.

Obama decided to make the speech after several news cycles in which controversial comments by his onetime pastor, Jeremiah Wright Jr., played in a seemingly never-ending loop on cable TV. But rather than merely distancing himself from Wright, he took the talk in a far more personal, sweeping—and politically risky—direction.

"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community," Obama said, arguing that Wright's intemperate remarks, while unsupportable in Obama's view, legitimately reflected a real anger among African-Americans. "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."

With that, Obama broke with the pattern, played out by both major contenders for the Democratic nomination, of distancing themselves from controversial supporters, applauding their resignations and plunging back into the talking points. Obama used the constant harping on Wright's strident remarks as an opening to delve into the thorny complications of race in America. "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," Obama said. "And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat to 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." At that point, 20 minutes into the speech, the audience of several hundred invited guests burst into applause.