A More Perfect Union

I missed Barack Obama's remarkable speech last week. So B and I watched it and put it on the speakers outside so D could listen in. By the end, I had to explain to B why I was tearing up. Listening, it was hard to think of anyone else who could credibly give it. I have heard, in person, a number of speeches by Rev. Jesse Jackson, an incredible orator. In many of them he addressed some of the same themes: the need to address the lingering sources of racial hostility and how economic justice for all renders racial scapegoating inert. But Obama can tell the same story (or perhaps a refined version) with a credibility--to all races, I hope--never seen before. So here it is for anyone who has (whether by choice or vocation) 37 minutes in front of a computer.