Political speech, delivered in Philadelphia during the contest for the Democratic party presidential nomination.
An attempt to address tensions between ideals of equal citizenship and freedom expressed in the Constitution, and America's history of slavery and segregation.
Authorship
Barack Hussein Obama (1961)
The first African American to become President of the United States of America.
Son of a Kenyan man and a woman from Kansas, raised by his grandparents.
From 1997 to 2004, he was a Democratic Senator for Illinois.
In 2009, he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Context
2008 Primaries for the Democratic Candidacy were held.
During the former President George W. Bush's administration, he had become increasingly unpopular due to:
The Iraq War (2003) and the war on terrorism against the axis of evil (Iraq, Iran, and North Korea).
Hurricane Katrina management.
Global economic recession.
General resentment on the administration of health, education, immigration, and disregard for the Kyoto Protocol.
11th September terrorist attacks.
In 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President, and Reverend Jeremiah Wright (his former pastor) was part of the campaign team.
Excerpts of Wright's past sermons were broadcast to discredit the campaign, which became a national issue.
The excerpts denounced the USA and accused the government of crimes against black people.
This Obama speech sought to place those comments in a historical and sociological context.
Jeremiah Wright was immediately withdrawn from the campaign team.
Aims
The major objective was to dissociate the campaign from the Reverend Wright's sermons.
Separate Obama's candidacy from either black or white extremism and hatred.
He wanted to encourage the largest amount of citizens as possible to raise their country's flag in shared feeling.
Emphasized blacks and whites alike, as equals, and not blame them for their resentment towards each other.
Tried to lead them to a unity in one common goal.
Results
Immediate consequences were immensely beneficial for his campaign.
He won the Democratic presidential primaries, defeating Hillary R. Clinton.
He finally became the 44th President of the United States of America.
His calling to unity seems to have succeeded; in 2012, Obama was re-elected.
His promise of a Health Care reform has become a diluted reality.
While 15 million people will remain uninsured, most of them illegal immigrants, it is expected that about 32 million will benefit from the new law.
But there are main points of his electoral campaign which have not yielded results:
Guantanamo is still open, and its prisoners have not had a trial.
He is the American President who has used more aircraft in armed conflicts.
Has not increased taxation on highest incomes.
The new immigration law and the limit to gun sales law are still pending.
