“Sen. Barack Obama delivered a blunt and deeply personal speech here Tuesday about racial division in America as he sought to quell a political controversy that threatens to engulf his presidential candidacy. The 37-minute speech was Obama’s most developed response to the storm of criticism that erupted over angry and racially charged sermons that included denunciations of the United States delivered by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Obama’s spiritual mentor and until recently a pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. It was a topic he had long considered addressing directly as the first African American with a serious chance of becoming president, but one that took on a sense of urgency because of Wright’s words.”
