Barack Obama (file photo, above) needs black voters if he hopes to win in the critical South Carolina primary Saturday. But visiting the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta that Martin Luther King made famous, Obama today challenged black Americans to confront prejudices of their own as a way of honoring King's legacy.
"For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system," Obama said this morning, a day after his defeat in the Nevada caucuses.
"And yet," he went on, "if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community."
"We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity. Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party," Obama said.
Nevada victor Hillary Rodham Clinton also is visiting an African-American church this morning, Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.
Martin Evans in Atlanta
Comments (2)
Church = Tax Exempt Status, No??????
This should be a concern for th eDems as this is all I see they candidates go to on every photo-op.
Jim Kelly - NY Conservative Campaigns
Right Jim, because Republican candidates never use religion or churches to pander to their constituents. Your party is the one with a viable candidate that is a pastor and believes that the United States Constitution should be amended to meet "God's Standards".
Bunch of F'in hypocrites.