Original subtitles

"We the people,

in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty-one years ago,

in a hall that still stands across the street,

a group of men gathered, and with these simple words,

launched America's improbable experiment in democracy.

The document they produced was eventually signed,

but ultimately unfinished.

It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery.

I chose to run for president

at this moment in history because I believe deeply

that we cannot solve the challenges of our time

unless we solve them together.

Unless we perfect our union

by understanding that we may have different stories,

but we hold common hopes,

that we may not look the same

and may not have come from the same place,

but we all want to move in the same direction,

towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith

in the decency and generosity of the American people.

But it also comes from my own story.

I am the son of a Black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.

I was raised with the help of a white grandfather

who survived the Depression to serve in Patton's army

during World War II,

and a white grandmother who worked

on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth

while he was overseas.

I've gone to some of the best schools in America,

and I've lived in one of the world's poorest nations.

I am married to a Black American

who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners,

an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters.

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.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional of candidates.

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.

Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, Black and white,

I have never been so naive as to believe

that we can get beyond our racial divisions

in a single election cycle or with a single candidate.

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.

We have no choice if we are to continue

on the path of a more perfect union.

Meet Barack Obama, a Harvard-educated Chicago civil rights attorney.

Obama has done and seen much in his 34 years of life.

He was raised in Hawaii, Indonesia,

and is one of very few African Americans

who can boast of tangible living proof of African roots.

My parents made me appreciate different cultures,

uh, but the notion that one culture

or one race was superior to another, uh,

was not in my, sort of, wiring, so to speak.

My parents met in Hawaii.

My father was part of that first wave of young Africans

to travel abroad to get an education.

They ended up getting married, having me.

My father decided he wanted to get his PhD,

obtained a scholarship to go to Harvard.

He moved there, but the separation made it difficult for them to stay together.

Not to mention, this was an interracial couple

at the brink of the civil rights movement.

My mother was from Kansas,

and she was born to a pairn of fairly typical midwestern,

white Americans in a lot of ways.

What made them remarkable was that they ended up

being more open-minded

and accepting of differencen and diversity than, I think,

was maybe typical of their generation and their time.

So I don't think that there was a sense of my difference,

racially, as I was growing up.

I mean, Hawaii was a...

sort of a unique kind of melting pot.

Then, when I was six, my mother remarried an Indonesian.

And we moved to Indonesia,

which certainly made me feel different, but it had more to do with the fact

that I was an American living in a third-world country

than the fact that I was an African American.

It probably wasn't until I came back from Indonesia

and I was around ten years old or so,

that it became an issue.

I obtained a scholarship to a prep school in Hawaii.

At that point, suddenly, I looked around and said,

"You know, there aren't that many folks who look like me."

When he first came into school, when Barry first came, I was excited.

I-- For me, being a little girl, being--

I haven't been there from first grade to fifth grade,

I had been by myself, and when I say by myself,

I just mean because I'm the only little Black girl there.

And being teased all the time was very difficult for me.

I didn't like my own skin. So when I saw him, I thought,

"Oh, he's just like me, but he's a guy.

But he's the same color skin, and maybe we can be allies,

maybe we can work together and they won't tease me as much."

My mother had inculcated in me the sense

that being African American was a-- a wonderful thing.

You know, that it was special in some way.

I didn't really know my father growing up.

He had left my mother by the time I was two,

and I didn't really meet him again until I was ten.

And basically learned of him

through the stories my mother would tell

and my grandparents would tell me.

The consensus was he was the smartest man they had ever met.

So, the image that I had of being a Black American was--

was almost exclusively positive.

It's ironic, you know, that I got this wonderful sort of Black history lesson

from this, uh, white woman from Kansas.

My mother really was somebody who identified so greatly

with the civil rights movement that that was almost our civil religion.

She was constantly talking about King and Malcolm,

and the struggles that were taking place in the United States.

Because of prejudices and narrow-mindedness,

negroes have been held out of the political arena,

but I do think that the day will come in the not-too-distant future

when the negro vote itself will be powerful enough

to be in a coalition

with, uh, liberals in the white community

and thereby elect a negro president of the United States.

My first memory of meeting Barry Obama

is that our mutual friend introduced us.

There were only four Black students

out of 1,600 students in the-- in high school that year.

Barry was a freshman, he had just come into the high school.

We talked about school, we talked about girls,

and we talked about whether the non-Black girls at our school,

which was all the girls at our school,

would ever date us.

We were used to being in situations

where we were the only Black person there,

or we were bridging two cultures.

I mean, that was just a part of how each of us had grown up.

We had a standing meeting about once a week,

and we called our standing meeting

"ethnic corner," which was tongue-in-cheek.

We talked about social issues because that was important to us.

And, so, one of those questions was,

"Will we ever see a Black president in our lifetime?"

Our consensus was, uh, there will be a Black president,

but it won't be in our lifetime.

By the time I was an adolescent

and was struggling with issues of racial identity

and a father not being in the house,

I reacted by engaging in a lot of, uh, behavior

that's not untypical of Black males...

uh, across the country.

I played a lot of basketball,

didn't take school that seriously, got into fights,

drank and consumed substances that weren't always legal.

And that was also at a time when Roots

was first appearing on television,

and there were just a lot of icons of Black identity--

Shaft and Super Fly--

forced me to figure out as I moved through high school,

what did it mean to be a Black man in America.

And also embrace my mixed heritage.

We both went to Occidental College in the fall of 1979 as freshmen,

and we were in the same dormitory.

Barack was always very self-confident,

he was fun to be around and easy-going

and a good conversationalist.

It turned out that I really liked to read,

and I liked to argue politics with my professors,

and I really, sort of like a sponge,

started soaking up a lot of, uh, information,

and spent the first two years there

sort of rediscovering what was important to me...

...and was active in a lot of campus activism.

Divest! Divest! Divest! Divest!

There were student groups that were trying to get

the college to divest from investing in South Africa.

And there was a rally in front of where the board was meeting,

the trustees, and Barack was the first speaker at that rally.

All right.

We called this rally today to bring attention

to Occidental's investments in South Africa,

and Occidental's lack of investment in multicultural education.

-There is no... -Go, Barry!

Barack did a staged thing where he was carted off,

supposedly by Afrikaners, I guess,

to sort of symbolize what was going on in South Africa.

It was just one of the many issues,

along with the 1980 election and bringing back the draft,

that was being discussed on campus.

Are we gonna take the responsibility to change it?

That was the first time that I had spent

a lot of time on the mainland United States.

I became close to a collection of African American professors

and Latino activists, and international students,

and it was a terrific period of growth for me.

But after two years at Occidental,

I decided that I needed a change.

It was a small liberal arts college.

So I transferred to Columbia University in New York City,

and became very interested in issues of social change

and politics and public policy and government,

and started really thinking more seriously about who I was

and what I wanted to be.

I was doing a masters

in early childhood education in New York,

and I was living at home with my parents.

I was invited to a Christmas party,

and I'm not much of a partygoer, so...

I was about to go home, when Barack stopped me

and, um, introduced himself to me.

And he must have said something a little bit compelling,

'cause instead of leaving as I was ready to do,

we ended up sitting down on a-- on a beanbag by the front door

and talked for a long time.

We both grew up moving around and in other countries,

and just instantly had a lot in common.

It was really bizarre when we both realized

we'd lived in Indonesia as children at the same time.

It felt extraordinary.

We had very parallel stories, it seemed.

His mother was an anthropologist and I was an anthropology major.

There was just this fast and furious conversation

about who we were and where we come from,

which, if you grow up moving around and feeling like an outsider,

is not at all a common experience.

For a lot of children, when you move around a lot,

you don't feel part of things.

You-- you're sort of outside looking in.

I think that probably the greatest effect it had on me

was I think it reinforced my general belief

that, under the skin, people were the same

and that whatever circles I traveled in,

I could find a common spirit or a common ground.

The week after we met, we fell into a kind of relationship.

We just shared such a similar history

and such a similar sensibility about what we were doing in New York

and how we saw ourselves as actors in a world

where we cared a lot about what we were

either choosing to do or about to choose to do.

We just seemed very much on the same page

as far as being young and very idealistic.

For a year, I worked as a financial journalist

to pay off my student loans and started looking

for work as a community organizer or political activist.

And it turned out that it was actually harder

to find work doing good than I had expected.

The Indiana-Illinois bi-state region

was the largest producer of steel in the country,

and, uh, the steel mills were closing all over the place.

So I began a project pulling churches together

to see what could be done for steel workers.

A large part of the area was the South Side of Chicago,

and there I was, a white organizer

dealing with an all-African American community.

Community organizing for us was so new.

There was actually no one in our community

that we could tap as a resource for a director.

We needed someone who looked like us,

thought like us, and understood our problems.

I put ads in some newspapers.

Barack saw it in the New York Public Library.

We did a-- a long-- a long phone conversation,

uh, which-- part of which I was trying to determine

was he Black or not.

He had the skin to step into that world,

but he didn't have the cultural background.

That was what concerned him,

is, "How can I walk into a community,

not only as an outsider,

but also as a person who ought to have legitimacy

if it's in the Black community?"

But I think he was reluctant to talk

about how that was shaping up to be the next move,

because it also meant conversations

about breaking up, which was happening anyway.

There was something about who we were together

that he really, um, was plugged into,

very legitimately, but there was this other part in him which could see

that there was no good end to this particular love story.

Yeah.

I drove out to Chicago not knowing a single person.

This was in 1985, and so I was, uh, 24 years old.

It was really a pivotal time in his life.

Coming to Chicago for him was a chance to get rooted

in a way he'd never had before

and to experience how things get done

in a big city in the United States.

He had never dealt with politics

and the kind of naked power that's in Chicago.

-You want Harold? -Yeah!

You got him!

Part of the reason I had been attracted to Chicago

was reading about Harold Washington

and the inspiration that African Americans

across the country had taken from his election

as the first African American mayor in Chicago.

The election of Harold Washington signified a sea change, politically,

like nothing we've ever seen in Chicago.

It finally sent the message to African Americans

and others who had been left out of the system

that it was their turn to have some access

and to have some power in the community.

Chicago was an extremely racially divided city.

Go, go, go!

It was a fact of life, and it was in our face,

and it was always coming up.

He saw a city that was suffering

under deep inequity, and he wanted to change that.

And he made no apologies for that.

He said, "I'm going to be fair to you. It doesn't matter if you're white,

it doesn't matter if you're Black, I'm gonna find you

and I'm gonna be fair to you."

The first few months,

Barack came in, uh, very serious.

You know, he'd, uh, be reading,

he'd be working on his notes at night.

He was a bit monkish.

And so I did have a concern the first few months

that, um, he would burn out.

I was pretty green behind the ears.

Not really knowing anything about Chicago,

not knowing that much about the church.

In the Black community,

the church is usually the base of everything.

That's where people get their strength.

And so, during this time,

to bring those churches together, this is power.

We'd use the church as a base for organizing.

I asked him to go to a different church every Sunday.

You get to know the church better if you're there on Sunday.

The pastor appreciates you being there.

He just asked if he could have about 15 minutes of my time

to talk about working in the community,

which was really right up my alley.

But I think, you know, in his early days,

he had some real difficulties.

And one of the challenges that Obama had was that,

you know, he-- he did not talk like the regular guy on the street.

And so, I think that gave some people

some kind of suspicion, uh, of him as an outsider.

When I say he did his homework, he did his homework.

He got to know the people he was working with.

I came from a community that was inundated

by waste and pollution, lack of jobs.

And we needed someone to encourage us.

To make us want to do the things that we needed

to improve our community.

We rallied. We did good.

We broke up meetings behind closed doors.

You're talking about a sense of power.

You know, and these are the kind of things

that Barack thought about and we did.

It was the best education of my life.

It allowed me to not only to learn some of the skills

of organizing and politics,

but, uh, more importantly, it gave me a home.

It rooted me in a community of African Americans

whose values and stories I soaked up.

Sooner or later, what happens to you,

if you're working with a lot of pastors,

they want to know... "Where do you go to church?

Who's your pastor?"

We talked about the need for him to be spiritually grounded

if he was going to do this kind of work, uh, in the church.

Um, and that even if he wasn't,

he needed to be spiritually grounded,

and he needed to make that decision, uh, for himself

and by himself.

I have a friend who, every time you greet him,

every time you ask him, "How're you doing?"

He answers...

"Just trying to make it, man.

Just trying to make it."

When Barack first came to see me, he said...

"I want to make an intelligent choice.

I just don't want to join because I like the music

or it was a great service."

He wanted to make an intelligent decision

about his faith.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright is one of the giants

in the Black prophetic tradition of the 20th century.

He's deeply influenced by Malcolm X,

in some ways even more than Martin Luther King, Jr.

Studied at University of Chicago,

so he was both a scholar as well as a powerful preacher.

How about the fact that we have pledged

to take what we've got as Black people

and put it back into the Black community?

That's what I want to ask.

He was deeply entrenched in an Afrocentric perspective,

and also a man deeply rooted in the politics and culture

of African American society,

and brought those to bear in criticizing racial injustice

and social inequity in the society around him.

In a conversation with Christ,

what the word says about racism comes through loud and clear.

Now, Jeremiah Wright has always been one to engage

in a very, very intense critique not just of white supremacy,

but of the American empire.

Apartheid is wrong! Oppression is wrong!

Anybody who feels white skin is superior to black skin is wrong!

The president of the US,

who doesn't even know his own Black cabinet members,

is wrong!

As we talked more about the Black church...

in one of the conversations,

I mentioned that at the University of Chicago

I had studied under Fazlur Rahman.

He said, "The Muslim?" I said, "Yeah."

That's when I found out he had family members

who were Muslim.

And we began talking about the similarities and differences.

I found him to be a very intelligent young man

and our conversations increased.

The culture says, "You are ugly."

The Christ says, "You are beautiful."

The culture says, "Your skin is black."

The Christ says, "And so was mine."

Once he made his decision to join the church,

you could see a marked difference in-- in his groundedness.

I think prior to that, Barack was searching for himself,

both himself in the African American community,

but also himself in the faith community.

I-- I think it had real value and real meaning to him.

I got a letter. I was in Germany studying.

And the letter, I looked at the sender,

and it was Barack Obama.

And the thing that really startled me

when I got the letter was that he had--

it had the same handwriting as my father's.

And my father used to write to me, and...

you know, so I was like, "What is going on?"

This is like, I don't know, two years or three years

after my father has died.

So I opened the letter, kind of feeling really strange,

and it turns out to be Barack Obama, Jr.

I grew up knowing that I had a brother in Hawaii

because my father was very proud of him.

And his mother always sent Barack's school results,

so we knew about him.

But as a child, you don't really relate.

We got to meet each other in Chicago, finally.

We, uh, decided on that, we needed to get to know each other.

And immediately it was like,

"This is somebody I've known all my life."

And we didn't stop talking for about two days.

He asked me so many questions about family,

about his father-- in particular about his father.

I think it was a big hole in his life.

We don't know the reasons why his father

couldn't see him more, be around him more,

but I could at least relay to him that "Your father loved you very, very much."

He came and visited me in Kenya,

and in that time, we continued talking.

Although I couldn't fill this hole

that Barack had lived with all his life,

I could reduce it because it was filled with family

and stories that were not just made up.

And I think that was something that he needed to have,

and it helped in his development

and what he was trying to do with his life.

We were taking a walk, and he said,

"I've decided to, uh, go to law school."

I said, "Okay, um, that's reasonable. Why?"

You know. And, uh-- uh, he talked about power,

that, uh, he didn't see having the--

getting enough power to change things

through community organizing.

He wanted to have some kind of platform

to be able to create greater change.

I was 27 when I got to law school.

It meant that I had gotten a lot of errant, uh, energy

out of the way.

I knew why I was there and what I wanted to get out of it.

When I first met him, he seemed...

He was a Black guy from Chicago with this African-sounding name,

and I had no idea of his unusual background.

He had a very sort of wise presence about him.

He always had something that was a little different to say

that seemed a bit more well thought out

than the other students.

I had learned, as an organizer,

to be able to articulate a position and express myself,

and I had great enthusiasm for the subject matter.

And I think when you're interested in something,

you end up, uh, doing well.

And I ended up elected as the first

African American president of the Law Review at Harvard.

It was obvious from the beginning that

Barack was gonna be a formidable candidate.

He just impressed people around him.

But when Barack was elected,

I, frankly, was-- was a bit surprised.

Race was a huge issue in the Harvard Law Review,

as it was everywhere else in this society.

And everybody understood that this was gonna be a huge symbol.

I think it's a good sign. I think it's a sign of progress.

Although I'm honored and I think people can, uh,

say that my election symbolizes some progress,

at least within the small confines of the legal community,

I think it's real important to keep the focus

on, uh, the-- the broader world out there

and see that, uh... uh , for a lot of kids, uh,

the doors that have been open to me aren't open to them.

Harvard Law School in the late 1980s, early 1990s,

was a place where people talked

and argued about racial issues

because it's a reflection of the larger society,

that's what Americans were doing.

There are 1,600 students here at Harvard Law School.

Nearly a quarter are people of color and nearly 40 percent are women,

yet Harvard Law School's faculty contains

only five tenured women professors

and only three tenured Black professors.

Professor Derrick Bell was the first Black granted tenure

at Harvard Law School back in 1969.

Now, he's taking a leave of absence

until the school tenuresits first Black woman professor.

Bell's protest had its origin in the faculty diversity movement,

which was a nationwide movement.

And there was a lot of discussion

about whether and to what extent Barack should be involved.

This was a very controversial thing.

There was the matter of what are the appropriate things

for the president of the Harvard Law Review

to speak out on, and what are-- are not.

I remember that the Black law students

had organized an orientation for the first-year students,

and one of the persons who spoke at that orientation was Professor Bell.

And I remember him sauntering up to the front,

and not giving us a lecture, but engaging us in a conversation...

and speaking the truth that I've carried with me ever since.

Now, how did this one man do all this?

How has he accomplished all this?

He hasn't done it simply by his good looks

and easy charm.

Although he has both in ample measure.

He hasn't done it simply because of the excellence of his scholarship,

although his scholarship has opened up new vistas and new horizons,

and changed the standards of what legal writing is about.

I spent three years at law school

continuing the same line of questioning

that I had been engaging in as a community organizer.

How do we bring about a more just society.

You know, what are the institutional arrangements

that would give people, uh, opportunity.

Every day, on the news, we hear that we're in a recession.

That violent crime is increasing, that millions of Americans,

including so many of our children, are homeless.

And that our education system must be reformed.

We have assembled a distinguished panel to explore these problems.

I really would like for Mr. Obara to--

uh, Obama to respond to this since he is young and Black.

Whenever we blame society for everything,

or blame white racism for everything,

um, then inevitably, we're giving away our own power

to some extent.

Um, at the same time,

we can't let the federal government off the hook

or the judiciary system off the hook. I mean, the fact of the matter is

we can take individual responsibility but still mobilize as communities

to make the kinds of structural changes

that are gonna be necessary.

As the first African American president of the Law Review,

I ended up generating a lot of publicity.

That put me in a position where, leaving law school,

I pretty much could write my own ticket...

and decided not to take what might have been

the more conventional route clerking on the Supreme Court

and working in a large law firm.

I read a newspaper article one day that indicated

that an African American lawyer was returning to Chicago.

He had been editor in chief of the Harvard Law Review.

He wanted-- he was interested in civil rights.

I did nothing but civil rights work.

And, so, I figured what the hell, I'll call him.

He said, "You know, every firm is recruiting me."

And he indicated that he wasn't sure what he wanted to do.

But would I be willing to have lunch with him,

just-- just to talk.

We probably had three or four lunches.

And finally after the summer, he said to me out of the blue,

"Aren't you going to offer me a job?"

I said, well, "Are you interested?"

And he said, "Well, I-- I think I am."

But he didn't come back here because of me.

He-- he came to Chicago because of Michelle.

He had worked the summers at a law firm in Chicago,

and she was at one of those law firms,

and he liked Michelle.

I first met Michelle Robinson when she was thinking of leaving

her private law firm, and a good friend of mine,

who was the head of the law department at the city,

sent her resume down to me.

Across the top was written, "Outstanding young superstar,

wants to leave the private practice, interested in government service."

I invited in Michelle for an interview,

and rather than selling her resume, as people often do,

she told me her story.

The story of growing up on the South Side of Chicago.

Being a product of the Chicago public school system,

going on off to outstanding schools, Princeton and Harvard.

And I was so blown away by her, I offered her a job on the spot.

I told him the firm was interested in hiring him,

and he shared with me that he had-- had this contract to write a book.

And he said to me, um, you know, "I-- I don't want to start working

while I'm doing this. I'll-- it'll be a distraction.

I'd rather finish the book,

so that I can really roll up my sleeves and practice law."

I had graduated from law school in 1991.

and I had been fortunate enough to get a contract

to write a series of essays about civil rights laws

and-- and civil rights policies

and how they've changed and how they need to move,

uh, as-- as we enter the, uh, 21st century.

Um, so I was in the middle of writing this book

when I got a call from the national organization,

called Project Vote, and they were very eager to have me

direct their voter registration effort in Chicago.

I want to continue serving as your president four more years,

so from this moment--

Well, if the economy is the most important political issue

in this campaign this year, and it certainly is,

then it's particularly important to Blacks

because they are hurting the most.

Black people are further behind now than we were thirty years ago!

-What's your name? -Rodney.

For the Democratic candidates,

Black voters, traditionally loyal Democrats, are important.

But some now worry the Black community

is being taken for granted.

Despite voter education efforts, people are still staying away

from the polls this presidential primary season.

The decline in voting has been especially dramatic

among Blacks, many of whom see no one to vote for.

If the elections were to be held this evening,

I wouldn't vote at all.

It was a critical election.

You also had Carol Moseley Braun on the ticket as potentially

the first African American senator from Illinois,

and the only one in, uh, the senate generally.

Average citizens, working people, women,

minorities don't have a voice there right now.

And so, uh, my election will make a radical difference,

uh, by virtue of-- of giving voice to those interested

in those concerns.

About two weeks later, Carol Moseley Braun

won the Democratic senate nomination,

and at that point, I realized that

this presented an opportunity, in Illinois, to, uh, enfranchise

and-- and engage a lot of African American voters

that, uh, previously had not been involved.

On the line with me from Chicago is Barack Obama,

State Director of Illinois Project Vote.

At some point, you'ren gonna have to have leadership.

Giving people some sense

that the debates about the issues are real.

That by the time an election comes about,

people are already plugged in. They already feel invested.

We have victory in our hands, we just have to hold on to it.

There was such a tradition in this country,

particularly with the Great Migration,

of Black people not getting involved in electoral politics.

And so, Project Vote said we're gonna take the message out

to these people in the communities,

and explain to them why not only is it their right, but their obligation.

There's the old story that when America is sick,

Black folks have pneumonia.

Since Black folks are suffering even more than the general population,

what that means is we're even more cynical

and more skeptical about the political process.

But citizens can't just remove themselves from that process.

We've got to get involved if we're going to make a difference.

The election is five days away, but business is already brisk

at the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners office.

A record number of people have registered to vote

in the Chicago area.

All the programs that's out right now

saying, "You should vote," I've been listening to them,

and now it's time to take a-- make a stand.

Project Vote had a lot of grassroots people

active in getting people signed up to vote,

and they were very successful doing it.

And I hope that my election opened up doors for women,

for people of color, for people from working class backgrounds.

I hope that it cut through some of these barriers.

Do you have any plans to run for political office?

You know, uh, not at the moment.

I've only been married a year,

and so I need to spend a lot of time with my wife.

I've got a real full plate at the moment.

I teach a course at the University of Chicago,

in civil rights law.

You know, I'm working in my law practice.

We do a lot of employment discrimination cases,

voting rights cases.

That keeps me pretty busy.

If you end up being fortunate enough to have the opportunity to serve, uh,

it's because you've got a track record of service in the community.

Uh, and I think, uh, right now, I'm still building up that track record.

Tell me about the book that you are working on

about race relations.

Well, you know, it's, uh, it's actually changed quite a bit.

As I wrote it, it ended up becoming much more of a personal reflection

on what it means for me to be an African American.

And a reflection on my father, in particular,

who passed away quite a while ago.

My guest today is truly the epitome of that word

"African American."

He has written a wonderful autobiography,

as well as a look at America called Dreams From My Father.

My guest is Barack Obama.

I did say African American, and the fact that your father,

who also was Barack Obama, uh, was from Kenya.

That's right. My father returned to Kenya,

and essentially became sort of a mythic figure to me.

-The icon. Yeah. -An icon.

Your father comes back once when you're ten.

And it isn't till years later that you learn the real story

of what happened to him back in Kenya.

And then because he starts to speak up

and because of the changing political scheme.

You know, the, uh-- uh-- he ends up

being blacklisted from the government,

uh, and, uh, in fact dies a very bitter and lonely man.

Uh, and, uh-- There is a tragic element to that

and-- and part of what I had to come to terms with

in writing the book,

and in discovering that entire side of my life

and my family, was to-- was to really recognize

that, uh, he had been shaped by many of the forces

that I had-- was struggling with as a youth.

Uh, that he, uh, as an African,

uh, although was not genetically mixed...

-Mm-hmm. -...uh, so to speak,

culturally was caught in this cross-pollinization,

this hybridization, this movement from traditional African society

into suddenly being catapulted into the modern age.

And-- and, uh, I think in the end,

he was not ever quite able to completely bridge

that-- that schism between modern life and traditional life

that probably, uh, is a schism that,

for him, at least, was just as powerful

as any schism between Black and White.

-Good evening. -Good evening.

Thank you very much. I, uh...

The section that I'm going to read for you right now,

uh, takes place during my adolescence,

and I'm a very angry man, uh, young man,

partly because my father is absent, partly because I'm trying to struggle--

What does it mean exactly to be a Black man in America?

"The only thing you could choose as your own

was withdrawal into a smaller and smaller coil of rage,

until being Black meant only the knowledge

of your own powerlessness and your own defeat.

And the final irony, should you refuse this defeat

and lash out at your captors, they would have a name for that too.

A name that could cage you just as good.

Like paranoid. Or militant.

Or violent. Or nigger."

What I discovered and I tried to write about this in the book--

is that, I guess, that the solution for me

to that sense of isolation

was to throw myself into a community.

Uh, to basically, uh, decide--

And I-- it wasn't articulated in my mind at the time,

but in retrospect, I can see what I was doing.

I ended up, um...

deciding that my individual fate

had to be tied to something larger than myself.

Okay, thank you very much!

Hyde Park, Chicago, is a place

where you find your people pretty quickly.

In those years it was all about dinner,

and dinner at other people's houses,

and dinner with a lot of people around the table.

And I think that all of us were trying to figure out,

uh, what we wanted to do with the opportunities

that we had, um, to be useful people.

When I met him, I honestly thought

he was the smartest person I had ever met.

To all of my other brilliant friends, I am sorry.

There was just a way that his mind took things

and processed them.

That his curiosity was probing and deep and relentless.

So, I knew that whatever he wanted to do,

um, that he could do.

I was out in the front yard raking leaves,

and he drove by, he stopped, and he said, "Oh, you know what?

You don't have my book, you ought to read my book."

He didn't say-- He didn't give me any context around it or anything.

I didn't know anything about him

other than that we would play ball together

and he was married to Michelle. And I started to read it,

and I opened the door and I called my wife

and I said, "Anita...

Barack is an incredible writer. And he's really smart."

I met Barack Obama as a favor to a friend.

She said, "I know this sounds crazy,

but I think he could be the first, uh,

first Black president of the United States."

And I thought, "Well, that was pretty grandiose."

I sat down with him, and while I didn't necessarily walk away

humming hail to the chief, it was an interesting conversation.

I didn't know exactly what his plans were,

but I knew that he was learning the system.

Because we weren't actually sitting at that table

where the power was, I think at some point,

he realized that he needed to be at the table.

Chicago was a hotbed of political progressive politics.

And I think he was inspired by that.

We lived in the same area of Chicago,

and I would see him a lot.

I thought he was a nice-looking young man, pleasant.

Then all of a sudden, I heard that he was running

for the state senate spot.

You know, I-- I wasn't really focused

on running for office, per se.

I think, I've been continually experimenting

with ways to bring about change.

I tried community organizing, I've worked as a civil rights attorney.

And the idea of participating in the legislative process

became more interesting the more I saw the limits

of social change through the courts.

And then what happened was a vacancy came up

in the state senate seat in the district where I live.

Alice Palmer, a long-time revered South Side state senator,

had decided that she wanted to run for higher office

for a congressional seat.

-I'm Alice Palmer, how are you? -How are you?

She had promised him that she would support him.

Well, she lost the primary, so she wanted her seat back.

She wanted Obama to step back,

and he was not going to step back. They'd made a deal.

There was a lot of anger and tension

and division in the community about that,

because in the African American community,

politicians believe that you should always wait your turn...

and many voters feel that way too.

I think Obama came to Chicago

with the thought and ambition of getting into politics.

He was extremely ambitious.

Nobody writes a book about their life

when they're 30 years old. Unless he's got a plan.

It was when I started doing Project Vote in 1992

that I came to appreciate the need

for a more effective political movement

within the African American community.

I represent the children of the civil rights movement

who've had opportunities to study and advance as a consequence

of the sacrifices that our parents made.

And that provides this generation with special advantages...

but also special burdens or responsibilities that, maybe,

we haven't fulfilled yet.

Barack Obama's mother's death came quite suddenly.

Her cancer was quite aggressive,

and she wasn't expected to die as quickly as she did.

The compounding tragedy

was that he didn't make it in time to say goodbye.

He was involved with politics in such a way

that he felt he couldn't quite strip himself away

and he got there, you know, Hawaii's far, far away,

and he just got there-- got there late.

And then he spread her ashes in the Pacific Ocean

and that was that.

He was shocked by it. Devastated.

They were very close, and I think he felt that his search

for his father perhaps overlooked

just how fundamentally important his mother had been to his shaping.

She was, uh, just a wonderfully sweet spirit,

and, uh, somebody who was, at her core, generous and thoughtful,

and somebody who, uh, rooted for the underdog, I think.

She ended up working as a, uh, development officer

for international aid organizations.

She had a terrific sense of empathy,

an ability to step in somebody else's shoes

and imagine how they might be feeling.

And I think that aspect of her is probably the thing

that was her greatest gift to me.

I think that my interest in public service

in part, you know, grew out of those early lessons that she taught me.

And, uh, ultimately, I was elected as the state senator

for the 13th legislative district.

We have Senate Bill 1645.

Madam Secretary, please read the bill.

I move to concur with the House in the adoption

of their amendment number one to Senate Bill 1645.

Motion filed by Senator Obama.

The basic intent of this bill is to maintain the status quo

with respect to who qualifies

for time and a half overtime pay and who does not.

It is true and this was discussed in committee...

Barack's experience as a state senator

is underappreciated in terms of his evolution.

Most ambitious politicians in Chicago

would take the route of going to the city council

and trying to become mayor and going through city politics.

But that's a hornet's nest.

He was able to sort of learn his way

through all of the dynamics of politics in Springfield.

By the time I arrived, you had a divided legislature,

and-- and discovered that most of my bills

were going to get killed before they had even been debated.

In fact, I remember the first time I spoke on the floor of the senate.

One of my Republican colleagues came up to me

and said, "You know, Barack, that was a wonderful speech.

I think you changed a lot of minds, but you changed no votes."

He came to talk to me about running for Congress.

He was in the state senate, he was restless, uh,

wanted to go to Washington.

And he thought that he could challenge Bobby Rush,

who was the sitting congressman of the district.

Bobby in '99 had run for mayor of Chicago.

And got badly beaten.

And Obama sensed an opportunity,

felt he could contribute more.

State Senator Barack Obama says the biggest issue

in the first district race is leadership.

This was Harold Washington's seat.

And, unfortunately, we have an incumbent who has not lived up

to that standard of leadership.

I mean, I'm thinking that Obama and I are buddies.

You know, we know each other. We, uh, walked down the same walk.

We bopped to the same tune, all right?

And then all of a sudden, the guy challenges me,

you know, out of the blue!

His biggest challenge is getting his name recognition up.

I maintain that I got great name recognition

because I'm an activist. I'm here.

Here's a man that represents the people.

Bad motherfucker. Bobby Rush.

Bobby Rush is a beloved man, was then, is still now.

A Black Panther.

A man who is closely connected to Fred Hampton,

a young revolutionary who lost his life in Chicago,

essentially set up and murdered by the FBI

and the local police.

They murdered Fred Hampton. Uh, they're out to murder me.

They-- It's like they'll murder anybody that's Black in this country.

Bobby, what's the next move for you personally?

I haven't-- My-- I'm-- There's no "personally" anymore.

I'm a people's man, so I do whatever the people decide.

There's nothing personal about it whatsoever.

Okay. Thank you very much.

I represented street people, common people, poor people...

the hungry, the outcasts. I know who I am.

I know where I-- I standat with my community. All right?

They don't always say it right. Sometimes they call me Alabama.

They call me Yo Mama...

...but it's Obama.

I was probably one of two Baptist pastors to endorse him

when he ran against Bobby Rush.

And, um, you know, the big thing with that was

that he wasn't Black enough.

Who are you?

You know, a lot of Black people, "This Ivy League person.

Who's your mama? Who's your daddy? What's your background?

Uh, what's your weird way of talking?

What is that weird name you've got?

You're going to come in and challenge our beloved Bobby Rush?"

This is viewed as a key leadership post

for the African American community.

And I think that what's more important

for the constituents of this district

is somebody who's accessible, somebody who's energetic,

and somebody who's got a vision for the future.

Look, man, I fed hungry children.

I put myself in the crosshairs of the police department

for my community.

I was on the right side of history.

So, when did that become old news, and to who is it old news?

Hi, how are you? I'm running for Congress. First Congressional District.

It might not be relevant to you,

but it's certainly relevant to those people

who you're asking to vote against me.

Barack Obama, running for First Congressional District.

A still-hopeful Barack Obama

worked the room tonight greeting constituents

with hugs and handshakes.

What's going on, man? How you doing? Thanks for coming.

There is a-- a political structure

around any incumbent congressman, uh, that is formidable.

I heard somebody was giving you a hard time.

Touted as a rising political star,

if he were to win this congressional race,

he'd be a spokesperson for African Americans

both locally and nationally.

Some say he appeals to a broader range of people,

and that works well in Congress.

Well, we've done a wonderful job in terms of putting, uh,

a message about a new politics out here.

We're very proud of that.

And we think that we really have something to build on for the future...

How are you? Good to see you.

Well, he had credentials. Very impressive credentials.

But he didn't have community credibility.

He was a nice fellow and he is a very impressive individual.

And, um, I-- I-- But I won.

People say the one political misstep

he made was running against Bobby Rush.

There was a whole question of,

he-- he couldn't really relate to the Black community.

-He wasn't Black enough. -Mm-hmm.

Did that raise any of these old struggles

that he'd had even as a teenager as to who he was?

No, I mean-- Right. He-- He grew out of that.

And when you grow up and you become an adult,

you realize that you are who you are

and people have to connect with that or not.

And when people bring that issue up,

my-- my sense is it's more their issue than it is his.

I've grown up in this community. I'm as Black as it gets.

I was born on the South Side,

I come from an, obviously, Black family, we weren't rich, you know.

I'd put my Blackness up against anybody's Blackness

in this state, okay? And Barack is a Black man.

And he's done more in terms of meeting his commitments

and sticking his neck out for this community

than many people who criticize him.

And I can say that because I'm Black.

My view has always been, Barack is who he is.

People need to see that, and if they want him,

they should vote for him. If they don't, we move on.

I still have a certain level of cynicism about politics,

but I believe in him.

He's done an outstanding job as a state senator.

He has lived out his values in that way,

and I'm proud of what he's done.

In the summer of 2002, I got a call from State Senator Obama,

who told me that he wanted to run for the United States Senate,

and it-- it was sort of an existential moment for him,

uh, because he had lost the race to Bobby Rush by some 30 points,

he was broke,

uh, and though he was widely admired,

he also was thought to be damaged political goods.

He said, "I told Michelle I've got one race left in me.

If it doesn't work out, I'll go out and make a living,

but I think I want to take a shot at this Senate seat."

He came to talk to me about running.

He was having qualms. Why?

'Cause he might lose? No, because he might win.

And if he won, that would give him even less time with Sasha and Malia.

One of his biggest joys in life was putting them to bed at night.

They want a daddy, not a public figure.

I don't get any more joy than I do

when I'm playing with them or just watching them.

You know, they're, uh, they're better than a movie.

We want a man like Barack Obama to be in office.

Uh, someone who's prepared, who's worked in the community,

who has integrity, who's doing it for the right reason.

MICHELLE I always say I take off my wife hat

and put on my citizen hat, and say, "Well, if I weren't his wife,

would I want him to run?"

And the answer is absolutely yes.

Let me turn to Laura Washington.

Let's play a little hardball, and you ask the first question.

Well, I'm wondering how he's gonna edge out Carol Moseley Braun.

How are you gonna convince her not to run,

and if she does run, how are you going to win

with two African Americans splitting a-- a good part

of both of your bases?

Well, there is no denying

that, uh, ethnicity plays a role in Democratic Party politics.

You know, I think that's inescapable. Uh, I--

I don't think too much about the other candidate's potential,

uh, in the race. My job is to think about

how do I put together a team and a message

that effectively projects, uh,

why I think I'd make a good US senator.

I worked very hard in the Senate to produce for my entire state.

I thought I tried to do a good job...

but I didn't win re-election.

There were people that wanted Carol Moseley Braun

to run for Senate again. There were women in particular

who still wanted to see her back in office

and felt it was still her turn.

And Obama was not Carol Moseley Braun.

The latest on what's turning into a very crowded race for the Senate.

And this would have represented going back.

A few days ago, former US senator Carol Moseley Braun

said she would not try to get her old job back.

And that decision meant another Democrat was in the race instead.

State Senator Barack Obama is the second to make it official.

...that I will be a candidate for the United States Senate in 2004.

The probable candidate to reckon with at this point

is investment banker Blair Hull, who is reportedly willing to spend

up to 40 million dollars of his own fortune

to finance his Senate bid.

Do the other hopefuls have the resources

to bankroll their own races?

I certainly don't. Thank you all!

In any case, it is a season of proclaiming,

even though the primary is more than 13 months down the pipe.

- We cool? -Mm-hmm.

Barack, let's start with the question

that you always say you get first, which is...

-Of course. -What's with the name?

What's the deal with that name?

Uh... Let's start over.

This was the year after Osama bin Laden

took out the World Trade Center.

And there was this thought in the political community

that the name Barack Obama would not be sailable.

In fact, there was someone who suggested to him

that he run as Barry Obama,

which was his nickname when he was a kid.

He just laughed that off, and said, "Yeah, that's fine.

I know it probably tests better but my name's Barack.

That's how we're going to run."

When I was young, you know, there weren't that

many people with, uh, African names.

So, these days, you know, there are Shaquilles and Maliks,

but, uh, there were only Toms and Joes, uh, when I was growing up.

So, uh, my family actually called me "Barry"

up until my father passed away, uh, when I was, uh, 20.

And, uh, at that point, I-- I decided that I should use the name

that I was born with, and have used it ever since.

- Out of respect? -Out of respect for my father, yeah.

Now, much-- much to the regret of political consultants.

- Exactly. - Yeah.

Senator Barack Obama. Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

Sorry to interrupt your meal.

When, in his book, Barack Obama says, "You can't call me--

Don't call me Barry anymore." That's familiar.

That's familiar. I mean, a decision to say,

"I am Barack," you know what I mean?

You think about, like, Frederick Douglas, you know,

born Frederick Bailey, recreating himself.

Malcolm Little, you know, becoming Malcolm X.

You know, myself, you know, my own name...

...you know, is this attempt for Black folks

to, you know, sort of reclaim,

you know, some-- some sort of identity.

One of the interesting things

that I heard a lot about was, is he really Black?

And this was different from the "He's not Black enough."

I was hearing this from whites.

What makes him Black? His mother was white.

How does he get to be a Black guy, and how does he get to be a Black senator

when he doesn't even really have an African American background?

I think it-- it said a lot about race in this country,

and the fact that, particularly whites,

didn't really understand our racial heritage.

Senator Obama, how does being biracial

influence the kinds of issues that matter to you?

Well, it-- You know, I--

One of the things I think that I've always felt

is that, uh, I-- I'm hopeful about America,

and although race I think is at the center

of the American dilemma, and it always has been,

I think that it's also our opportunity,

because I think America is-- is, by nature, a hybrid culture.

Everybody comes here. We all merge together.

We-- we fight, we struggle, we battle, but, ultimately,

there's some common good that binds us together.

And I think that I'm always very sensitive,

in the kinds of issues I work on, to focus on, uh, those issues

that we all hold in common, issues of fairness, justice, uh,

the ability to-- to provide a better opportunity for our kids.

That's the kind of message, hopefully, that comes across

during my campaign.

The Illinois primary is less than two weeks away,

and campaigning is peaking.

Just how has a guy, who two months ago

garnered only 14 percent of the vote in the Democratic polls,

become a double-digit frontrunner?

Yeah. You're gonna win! We've gotta vote for you!

I know that my voters know my track record

and-- and my plans for Washington

because, uh, when your name is Barack Obama,

you don't get any free votes.

If Bush gets re-elected, even if we've got a Democratic Senate,

then all we're gonna be able to do is play defense.

It's gonna be hard to play offense.

He had a young man who traveled with him

who called me from the road.

He was down in deep Southern Illinois,

closer to, uh, Little Rock than Chicago

in a small town in a VFW hall,

and the kid said, "Boy, it went over great."

Obama called me that night and I said,

"Gee, I-- I heard it went great."

I really appreciate it, thank you for taking the time. It's very kind of you.

And he said, "Why do you sound so surprised?"

And I said, "I don't know, a Black guy named Barack Obama

from the South Side of Chicago.

I thought it might be a little challenging."

And he said, "No, no. You don't get it.

We'd talk about my grandfather who marched in Patton's army,

and my grandmother who was a Rosie the Riveter,

and we get along great."

Mr. Obama, one of your supporters

has raised the concern that perhaps

you're not connecting with African American voters

as much as you should.

Well, look, the African American community isn't monolithic

any more than the white community

or Latino community or the Asian community is--

is monolithic, and I think that's a healthy thing.

That's a part of our democracy. I certainly don't think that I would want

to restrict my support to African Americans

any more than Dan would want to restrict, uh,

hi-- his support to whites.

Part of what I think makes the Democratic Party rich

is the fact that we have to build coalitions.

Mr. Hull, you moved to Chicago in 1980, is that right?

I was doing a story about Chicago

and the Democratic Party's ability to reach voters

through its messaging.

And I was calling around and I was saying, "Who should I talk to?"

Several people said, "You need to talk to

this guy named Barack Obama."

And it was really interesting,

he was saying things that were in some ways

in line with the Democratic Party,

but he had a different way of thinking,

and he had a very expansive way of thinking.

And he was thinking that they needed--

they, the Democrats, um, and he, as a politician,

needed to try to message in a way that reached all voters.

Today's newspaper right here. Obama wins the primary.

It is history today, right here, in today's newspaper.

-Read all about it! -Thank you, I appreciate it.

-Fantastic, brother, Keep going. -Thank you, thank you, thank you.

-Congratulations, Trinitarian! -Thank you. Hey, fellow Trinitarian.

Thank you very much.

There are many reasons why this election is important,

and unfortunately, one of them is that

there are no, uh, people of color

in the highest governing body in the land, and it's 2004.

And I don't think that anyone would think

that we would still be saying that in this day and age.

He's gotten attention

because after winning the primary so soundly,

he could potentially be, you know, the only African American candidate

in the United States Senate, and that's news. That's huge!

I think the people of Illinois will make it happen.

- Good morning. How are you? - Wait!

This is a TV moment. What do you think?

Watch yourself. Watch yourself.

He's focused on the issues

and he has been driven by a positive message of hope,

and the notion that people--

We are all connected in some way,

and I think that people want to hear that now.

Some of you may know that my first job

out of law school was directing a project called Project Vote.

You know, my first love is getting people

to participate in the political process

because all the other stuff we do is dependent on folks

being engaged and feeling a part,

and feeling that their participation is actually going to make a difference.

If all of us keep our eye on the ball,

if all of us work hard between now and November 2nd,

I have no doubt John Kerry is gonna be the president,

John Edwards is gonna be the vice president,

and Barack Obama's gonna be the next US senator.

So, thank you so much, guys.

I appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate it.

After he won the primary, there was a fundraiser.

And John Kerry, who was poised to become

the Democratic nominee for President, came in to speak.

There were only two other speakers.

One was Rich Daley, the mayor of Chicago.

The other was Barack Obama.

And Obama gave a rousing speech.

In late June, we got a call

from the manager of the Kerry campaign...

and she said, "We'd like you to be the keynote speaker

at the Democratic Convention."

He said, "I'd be honored."

And as soon as he hung up, he said, "I know what I want to say."

It's good to see you. How are you?

And, for the next few weeks as he drove around campaigning

or was at the state senate in between votes,

he'd be scribbling notes down.

One day this fax came, and it was the draft.

And, I read the first page, and handed it to my wife.

I read the second page and handed it to my--

By the third page, I-- I just turned to her.

I said, "This is going to be one of the great convention speeches of all time."

The Democratic Party today

made it clear they think they have discovered

the biggest potential political star of either party

to come out of Illinois since Abe Lincoln.

His name is Barack Obama, and he's running for US Senate.

The party announced today

he'll be the keynote speaker at their Boston convention.

Democrats could have picked someone more famous,

but the pros saw something special in Barack Obama.

Barack's candidacy isn't just energizing

the Democratic Party, but it's energizing people

and giving them a renewed hope for politics, period.

How are you? Nice to meet you.

You know, they're tired of a politics of division,

so it's very uplifting to see this wonderful young man

who reminds so many people of their own sons and grandsons

regardless of race.

Do you think the Democratic Party

selected you in part because they wanted to present

an African American, young, rising politician?

Well, I think that John Kerry cares a lot about diversity in the party.

And I think that certainly made a difference.

I also think that the manner in which we won

our primary in Illinois was a hopeful sign,

because the conventional wisdom was that, uh, I would get the Black vote

and then a sliver of, uh, a white vote,

and instead we won in places people didn't expect us to win,

in-- in suburban areas, in rural areas.

And it indicates that people are really ready for a message for change.

What they want is somebody who has a positive message,

who has a tone in their politics that says,

"We can disagree with the other side without being disagreeable."

And I think that's the kind of message

that John Kerry is going to be projecting

at the convention during this week.

The, uh, Black caucus of delegates

to the 2004 Democratic Convention

had their sessions, and they invited me to speak

'cause I was one of the candidates for president that year.

And they invited Mr. Obama.

And he says, "I just want to explain to you, Reverend,

that, uh, you know, I'm doing the keynote tomorrow night,

and I'm probably gonna be more expansive

and unifying, uh, than, uh, a lot of people

are-- are used to."

And I stopped him then and said, "Don't worry, Senator,

you do what you have to do tomorrow night

'cause you have to win for the US Senate.

I'm gonna take care of the brothers and sisters tonight."

And he kind of looked at me

the way he kind of looks his head and he laughed.

And I think that began a relationship

where he and I understood, uh, that we play different roles.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you.

Let me express my deepest gratitude

for the privilege of addressing this convention.

Tonight is a particular honor for me

because, let's face it, my presence on this stage

is pretty unlikely.

When I first saw Barack Obama, I was skeptical.

And my introduction to him was like very many people's introduction,

the 2004 Democratic National Convention

where he gave the keynote speech.

But I was intrigued, even as I was skeptical.

I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story,

that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me,

and that, in no other country on Earth,

is my story even possible.

We wanted to createa movement that inspired people

to believe that we could overcome

some of these really, uh, great barriers in our politics.

That we could overcome the cynicism.

You know, I thought that this speech

was going to have a galvanic effect for Obama.

Didn't realize how much until I was in the room in Boston.

This year, in this election,

we are called to reaffirm our values and our commitments,

to hold them against a hard reality

and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers,

and the promise of future generations.

And fellow Americans, Democrats, Republicans, Independents,

I say to you tonight, we have more work to do.

I was sitting up in one of the box seats,

and I had some activists with me.

And they were like, "Well, why isn't he talking about voting rights,

and why isn't he talking about some of our issues?"

John Kerry believes in America.

And he knows that it's not enough for just some of us to prosper.

I understood that he had to deal

with a broad range of issues,

and that he was running for the US Senate

to represent everybody in Illinois.

If there is a child on the South Side of Chicago

who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child.

And I actually got into arguments defending him.

I would say, "Wait a minute. We-- we cannot fight

to get our best to the mainstream,

and then tell them, 'Don't talk to the mainstream

about mainstream issues.'"

It is that fundamental belief,

I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper,

that makes this country work.

It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams,

and yet still come together as one American family.

E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

It's his position. As an American politician,

his goal is to represent the best interest

of the entire nation from a particular position

and standpoint as a Black man, but broadening out,

not only what that Blackness might mean,

but how it might also encompass and include all of America.

Now, even as we speak,

there are those who are preparing to divide us.

The spin masters, the negative ad peddlers,

who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight,

there is not a liberal America and a conservative America,

there is the United States of America.

There is not a Black America and a white America

and Latino America and Asian America,

there's the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice...

You know, he made that statement,

"There's not a Black America or a white America,

there's the United States of America."

Now, that's not true.

There's totally a Black America and a white America.

And there's a Latino America, a gay America, a poor America,

uh, there's a America that is disproportionately incarcerated,

there are all of those things.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance

to the stars and stripes,

all of us defending the United States of America.

But you also had to understand that he was speaking aspirationally...

that people wanted to belong to a country

in which those were not permanent and impermeable distinctions.

In the end, that's what this election is about.

Do we participate in a politics of cynicism,

or do we participate in a politics of hope?

Hope!

I don't think Obama had any illusion

that everybody had transcended race

and had transcended historical animosities and all the rest,

and everybody was in full embrace of great unity.

It was a new kind of American optimism.

Voiced by somebody who embodied this melding of identity.

It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire

singing freedom songs,

the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores,

the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta,

the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds,

the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name

who believes that America has a place for him too.

I was there at the convention,

and it was riveting, electrifying.

It was comparable to King standing

at the summit of expectation in 1963,

where he identifies a golden thread

of the American dream and weaves it into a tapestry

of American democratic possibility.

Hope.

Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty.

The audacity of hope.

In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us.

The bedrock of this nation.

Now, I'm not saying that the 2004 speech

measured up to the "I Have a Dream" speech

in terms of rhetorical eloquence, though it was eloquent.

Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. Thank you.

But it did have an electrifying effect

in that same way.

That was a tremendous coming out party for Barack Obama.

Thank you.

Barack Obama.

Well, this is why you go into this business, to watch a speech like that.

He's the only speaker

who's come to this convention without any expectation

because people didn't know him, and boy, they know him now.

This is a guy who transcends labels,

um, clichés, racial, ideological, cultural.

He mixed it all up, he reinvented it,

he gave us a whole new vision of the United States.

-Yeah. -This guy's going places.

Six hundred... and fifty-six days ago...

I announced in a room a little smaller than this--

All right, it was a lot smaller.

That I was announcing for the United States Senate.

And at the time, as many of you know...

people were respectful, but nevertheless skeptical.

They felt that in a nation as divided as ours,

there was no possibility that someone who looked like me

could ever aspire to the United States Senate.

They felt that in a fearful nation,

someone named "Barack Obama" could never hope to win an election.

And yet, here we stand because we had a different concept,

a different notion of the American people.

And for those skeptics,

I say to them, look at this crowd tonight.

Look at this election today.

And I have three words for them!

-What are those words? -Yes we can!

Thank you, Illinois, I love you! Thank you!

Hey, guys!

Good morning, everyone, and I thank you for joining us today

as we stand here in the midst, once again,

of a very historic election.

I'm extremely excited to welcome Senator-elect Barack Obama

to the Congressional Black Caucus.

Only the third African American since Reconstruction

to be elected to the United States Senate.

This is such a historic race. Any pressure?

Well, you know, I don't feel pressure in the sense that,

uh, most of the issues that I'm concerned about

are issues that the African American community is concerned about.

But when it comes to speaking out on issues

that are of particular importance to the African American community,

I don't think that's a conflict with my role

as a, uh, effective legislator for the people of Illinois.

The expectations are so high for you.

How do you possibly meet those expectations?

Well, I don't think that anybody expects me, realistically,

to single-handedly transform politics in America,

certainly not before I'm sworn in.

...that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same...

I think it's important as we head into a new session

to confront problems...

to not pass them on to future congresses

or a future president.

And so, I want to confront problems, and I will.

I'll call upon Congress to take on... big issues.

And I look forward to working with members of both parties to do just that.

Am I making a right or a left here?

For the first year of his Senate tenure,

we really tried to be very low key for two reasons.

We didn't want to signal to the people of Illinois

that somehow Obama was using Illinois

as a stepping-stone to something else.

And-- and that wasn't his intent.

We also didn't want to aggravate his colleagues

who were naturally resentful of all the attention.

He could've done a Sunday show every week.

And then in late 2005, Katrina happened.

In August 2005, the Gulf is underwater.

New Orleans is underwater.

And it is very evident that not only

are the preparations for this abysmal,

but the racial disparity in the way people were treated

and cared for was appalling.

And the indifference from Washington

and other levels of government was appalling.

They told us, "Go to the Superdome.

If you want to be rescued, go to the Superdome."

All of a sudden, now they're telling us, "Go to the bridge."

We all have very few resources. What are we supposed to do?

When asked if race played a role in his response,

the president had a stern answer.

My attitude is this, the storm didn't discriminate

and neither will the recovery effort.

President George Bush said that the storm

was indifferent to race.

But people who could afford to live higher

and better were not as vulnerable

to those who were more in the storm's path.

So, where you lived in the storm's path

was determined by pre-existing economic condition.

What do you do when you see the richest nation in the world

and there are hundreds and hundreds

of dead Black people floating in the streets?

And the government, alternately, saying

that it's powerless to intervene in any way

that would save these people's lives.

This was a visual reminder of the disposability

of Black people's lives in the United States.

Especially poor people.

The important thing for us now is to recognize that

we have situations in America

in which race continues to play a part,

that class continues to play a part,

and when disaster strikes, it tears the curtain away

from the festering problems that we have beneath them.

And Black and White, all of us should be concerned.

For, I think, a lot of African Americans,

Hurricane Katrina was like 9/11

in terms of shaking the foundations of their relationship to this country.

I think that was probably central

to the narrative that wound up ultimately

giving Barack Obama an opportunity

to run for president of the United States.

Hi, how are you? Good to see you.

-How've you been? Happy new year to you. -Hi. Happy New Year.

Throughout 2006, the drumbeat was building for him

to become a candidate for president.

We postponed a trip to Africa

because he was trying to keep a lower profile.

Finally, in the summer of 2006, he went.

I'm on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

and so I wanted to make sure that I was getting information

that would help me do my job better as a US senator.

-We're really grateful. -Yeah, thank you.

-Nice to see you. -Best of luck to you guys.

-Thank you very much. -Good. Good.

I think I can be helpful in putting a different face

on US foreign policy and the US government.

My wife and I are going to get tested for HIV/AIDS.

So I just want everybody to remember that if a US senator can get tested,

then everybody in this crowd can get tested.

And everybody in this city can get tested

because you need to know your status.

I have stopped expecting things in my life

as the wife of Senator Barack Obama because everything is a surprise.

See you, guys.

But it was completely overwhelming to see hundreds and hundreds

and thousands and thousands of people

just lining the streets cheering this man, my husband.

It's sort of like, "Do you-- you know him?"

His coming here is a message, not only to us, it's an inspiration,

but to the entire world.

Who's the artist? Who made it?

-Who made it? - This guy?

-Hey! This is a beautiful gift. -Thank you.

Thank you so much. This is beautiful! Yeah!

Except I think he's-- he looks better-looking than I am.

Come here! Come, come, come, come.

My sense is that, as I talk to individual Africans,

their appreciation of someone with my background

being able to rise up and have some influence

over the course of events in the United States

was impressive for them.

Once we got to my father's compound,

there wasn't much room for family visitation...

and I think it was a little overwhelming for my grandmother.

Auma, just-- just, uh, come and translate for Granny.

How does she feel...

to have the man she raised's son here again?

She said she feels very, very good.

That's it. That's a soundbite right there.

We're not wasting any time.

He's not all ours.

The last time he was here, you know, it was all about family,

it was all about visiting us.

Senator, coming back 14 years later...

And now, we have quite limited time with him.

This time around, we really are just there to support him.

The first time I came here...

He's-- he's on official business and it's very, very obvious.

I didn't expect the attention to be that great, nationally.

Because, I mean, he's on the national news

more than the president is at the moment.

He's very big, and I didn't realize that.

I didn't realize how-- how important he's become.

I'm having a wonderful time in Kenya.

All of you are my brothers, all of you are my sisters.

I want to thank everybody here!

And as his sister, to be honest, it's very worrying

because I think at the end of the day,

it's a lot to put on the shoulders of one person.

And he's really quite a young politician.

Hopefully, what is taken away

by, uh, Africans who met me is that...

...an effective country is not going to be based on tribe,

it's not going to be based on an ethnic majority imposing its will.

But it's going to be based on a credo that says every individual,

regardless of their background...

should have equal rights and equal opportunity.

I want to say to everybody, thank you, I appreciate you,

and I look forward to coming back soon.

The reaction to him there was so kinetic...

and really signaled that this guy was a-- a globally important leader.

I-- I said to the senator, "He can't-- can't be a senator.

I mean, who's this-- who's this young boy?"

And, uh...

But we're very, very impressed with you.

You're-- you're going to be a very credible,

-uh, presidential candidate. -Wow.

No, don't get me into trouble there with the...

He's-- he's-- he's shy.

It became clearer and clearer that he was going to have

to take a look at running for president

and that he may be interested in running for president.

Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer had called him into Reid's office

to say, "You really ought to think about running."

Which shocked Obama,

that the Senate leaders would take that step to encourage him.

And he said, "You know, I-- I gotta think about this."

-Welcome to Iowa. -Thank you, I appreciate it.

Did you guys practice that?

He went and spoken at the Harkins Steak-Fry,

which was an iconic event.

It was a gathering place for Democrats and a trial setting for all

Democratic presidential candidates.

And Obama took that place by storm.

Right now, I'm focused on '06,

and we're gonna get all these Democrats elected.

-Yes. That's exactly right. -And then after the election, you know,

we're gonna then think about '08. All right?

And it's gonna take groups like...

I invited him to come to Atlanta.

We walked downtown Atlanta from my office for lunch.

And along the way people kept saying,

"Mr. Obama, are you going to run? Are you going to run?"

And he just sort of, uh, said, "Oh, maybe. I don't know."

He took a seat in the little restaurant...

and the waiters and waitresses,

other people just kept coming up to him.

They said, "Run, Mr. Obama. Run. Run."

I was sitting in my office, and he came in unannounced, um...

White Sox cap on, blue jeans.

I-- I think most people in the office didn't even see him passing through.

And he plopped down in a chair and said,

"You know, I'm close to making a decision to do this."

I told him, "My concern for you, Barack,

is not that you're gonna lose. It's that you're gonna win."