Race, Religion, and the Continuing American Dilemma: Barack Obama's Philadelphia Speech on Race

Towards a More Perfect Multi-America: Barack Obama’s Philadelphia Speech and Proposal for Racial Healing

By Dr. Zachery Williams
Voice of the People Submission
Akron Beacon Journal
March 19, 2007

The unfortunate truth is that America still suffers from the sickness and cancer of racism. This fact has been made most evident in the recent controversy surrounding Senator Obama’s affiliation with Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois, including his relationship with former pastor Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright.

In a span of thirty-seven minutes, Presidential candidate Barack Obama, exposed the intense and serious wounds of our nation: black anger and white resentment which continues to stifle this nation’s ability to move forward, toward a Multi-America.

We, as Americans, revel in our nation as a metaphor and an ideal; however, we cringe at any display of criticism or revelation of the truth of our nation’s unsavory past. This past, operates in our rearview mirror even as it appears front and center during delicate political moments such as this one. Americans, of all kinds, suffer from what social psychologist Dr. Joy DeGruy-Leary calls “cognitive dissonance,” which impairs our understanding and acceptance of the real effects of historic racial trauma.

Silence is agreement. For far too long, all Americans have been subdued into a seductive silence, one that romanticizes racial transcendence while also positing the inevitability of perpetual racial division. Yet, these conversations occur in private, on derisive talk shows, and in limited public spaces, disallowing collective engagement around such a serious and potentially, debilitating issue.

The stakes are too high for us to remain silent and inactive in resolving what Gunnar Myrdal called in 1940, “An American Dilemma.”

Cleveland native and poet, Langston Hughes, penned a significant poem which has direct application to our country’s current dilemma regarding race. Hughes in “A Dream Deferred,” writes:

What happens to a dream deferred?


Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?


Similarly writer James Baldwin, penned perhaps one of the most poignant civil rights manifestos of America’s greatest generation, in 1963, with his The Fire Next Time. The consummate public intellectual, Baldwin offered critical insights designed to help our nation avoid what he called “racial conflagration” or racial conflict/war.

He spoke, convincingly and expertly, of the complex fate of American blacks, highlighting the necessity to help deliver white Americans from their imprisonment by myths of racial superiority. Baldwin offered history and education as tools that would help bring our nation to complete maturity, even as it faced the difficult parts of its past. Baldwin offered that the consequence to averting such a path was found in the warning offered in the song of the enslaved: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign/No more water, the fire next time!” We already see the evidence of “quiet riots,” percolating in our central cities, illustrating that efficacy of Baldwin’s words coming true-unless we address the racial divide-once and for all time.

For too many Americans, black and white, our nation has yet to fulfill its promises of citizenship, equality, and justice. Unless we fully come to grips with the damage of centuries and decades of racialized attitudes, policies, and customs, our nation’s growth will continue to be stunted.

Barack Obama’s original speech on race, written by himself, evidenced a transformative leader that can lead by example, assisting us in healing America’s long-standing racial wounds. His own personal story, resonates with every American’s, signifying each of our genealogical trees-reflecting the immense, complicated character of relatives of tremendous racial and ethnic background.

In his finest moment of this campaign, Obama, standing against the backdrop of eight American flags, rose above the cynicism of his detractors, to provide a vision and a plan to assist America in confronting its past and present racial dilemmas. In Kingian language, he welded acknowledgement of the nation’s inhumane treatment of African Americans with a direct call for mutual responsibility, forging a blueprint for individual and collective racial healing.

Evidencing the blunt honesty of his bold and dynamic wife and partner, Michelle Obama, concerning her pride in the nation’s apparent ability to turn the corner, as it related to racial division in American politics. Michelle raised an important commentary, highlighting the overwhelming and enthusiastic support of her husband’s campaign-that of a bi-racial African American man. The honesty of Senator Obama is refreshing, considering the fact that this important ingredient has been missing from our current discussions. Obama’s courageous speech provided a personal example of how we, as a nation, can rise above the stifling fears that have continually constricted our ability to be open and honest as it relates to our nation’s racial past.

Recently, as of February 5-12, 2008, the University of Akron, commemorated the 10th anniversary of President Bill Clinton’s race commission in 1997. The first town hall meeting was held at the University of Akron in 1997. Visit our website at http://www.uakron.edu/colleges/artsci/race/RevisitingRace.php to review our list of speakers, face-to-face conversations, and community activities.

In 2009, the University of Akron plans to continue these dialogues on an annual basis, engaging the campus and greater Akron/Canton/Cleveland communities in serious dialogues and solution-seeking forums regarding this issue. We need this dialogue to take on an applicable action-oriented character to effectively resolve problems plaguing every race and ethnic group.

Senator Obama’s historic speech provides us a golden opportunity, at this very hour, to revive these discussions regarding race and racial healing. Parallel with it, we must build upon the important groundwork laid by President Bill Clinton’s race commission, headed by eminent historian, Dr. John Hope Franklin. To take a step further, we must resolve to develop an open and honest national truth and reconciliation as South Africa developed in its attempt to deal with the ghosts and current legacy of racial apartheid.

In doing so, we must understand that the process will not be easy. It will not be without difficulty or anxiety. However, this is a process that all of us must undergo in order to achieve authentic racial healing and reconciliation. Political scientist Dr. Ronald Walters has written an insightful new book examining such a proposal in his work, The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press, 2008).

Contributing to our nation’s culture of fear have been insensitive conservative and liberal media pundits, who railed against Obama, pointing our incomplete and misconstrued sound-bites of his former pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright. The tactics of Fox News, ABC News, and countless talk show hosts are reprehensible and highly polarizing. The American people deserve truth and honesty, rather than derision, diversion and hyperbole.

An interesting juxtaposition of Obama’s Philadelphia, Pennsylvania speech of racial challenge and racial hope is Ronald Reagan’s 1980 speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, which evidenced extreme racial insensitivity and intolerance. My hope is that Obama’s speech will result in the development of countless policies which constructively reconstruct our nation, as opposed to the slew of destructive policies that emanated from the Reagan administration.

Regarding the black church and black pastors, both entities have functioned as the conscience of America. Black preachers, in the social justice tradition, have continuously functioned as prophetic leaders for our nation and world. Beginning in the crucible of slavery, running through the period of Jim Crow and domestic colonialism, to the current vestiges of institutional racism and discrimination, black prophets have spoken the truth in love, even if this love-talk has been deemed as harsh due to its honest nature. We as Americans must face the honest truth of our nation’s past and commit ourselves to a full immersion baptism in the river of reconciliation, so that we can be cleaned and healed of this cancer of racism.

The truth of the matter is that Obama is correct: Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in America. Sociologist of religion and public intellectual, C. Eric Lincoln, provides an explanation for the development of the black church in his prophetic book, Race, Religion, and the Continuing American Dilemma. Lincoln argues that the black church developed as a result of the discrimination inherent in the white church, noting that no discussion of the black church and its cultural character can commence without discussing this sordid relationship and past history.

We must have the collective courage and desire to slay the dragons of discrimination, demonization, and dehumanization. Our children will thank us. As Cornel West appropriately penned in his 1993 book by the same title, race matters. The question for our generation to answer is one Dr. King put forward in his last major work in 1967: Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

My proposal is for black, white and multi-ethnic church leaders, denominations, and organizations, led by the United Church of Christ and various African American denominations, to organize these truth and reconciliation commissions. The church is the proper institution to handle the racial mountain as it relates to religion. Church leaders should organize ongoing interfaith, intergenerational, ecumenical dialogues, engaging the American public and local communities, around interconnected issues of race, religion, politics, and America’s past. Two books that I would suggest as reading materials for this church-led effort would be Lincoln’s Race, Religion, and the Continuing American Dilemma and Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith’s Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America.

To be healed of its racial pain and trauma, Americans must be honest and thorough in studying, sharing, digesting, debating, and actively discussing/resolving our nation’s racial and ethnic past. In this effort, Americans of all backgrounds must understand that every group has been racialized. We are all fully responsible for charting a visionary direction through our racial/ethnic morass. Ignoring race or acting as if it is the responsibility of one group is absurd and inaccurate. Race cripples white as much as it does black-Asian, Hispanic, Latino, immigrant, Native American, etc.

While addressing race, we must simultaneously address parallel, significant and interrelated issues of disparities in health care, home foreclosures, economy, education, involvement in the prison system, environmental matters, and the like. These challenges are not only local, regional, and national-they are global. Dr. King resolved that America possessed the resources to deal with this insidious crisis. However, he also lamented that, as a nation, it was evidenced that we lacked the will to commit the necessary resources to root out these collective ills.

In 2008, as a nation, we find ourselves at a decisive crossroads. Barack Obama has opened the door for us to promote racial reconciliation and healing. The question is: will we walk in, roll up our sleeves, and get to the difficult work of making this long-held dream a reality. My hope and prayer is that, as a Multi-America in the making, we unequivocally respond with a resounding “Yes, We Can,” and “Yes, We Will” because “Yes, We Must.”


Written By Dr. Zachery Williams
University of Akron History Professor
Interim Director of Pan African Studies
Public Historian and Intellectual
All Rights Reserved

Dr. Williams can be contacted at zrw@uakron.edu.