"A More Perfect Union" is the title of a speech delivered by then-Senator Barack Obama on March 18, 2008, in the course of the contest for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Speaking before an audience at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Obama was responding to a spike in the attention paid to controversial remarks made by Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor and, until shortly before the speech, a participant in his campaign. Obama framed his response in terms of the broader issue of race in the United States. The speech's title was taken from the Preamble to the United States Constitution.

Obama addressed the subjects of racial tensions, white privilege, and racial inequality in the United States, discussing black "anger," white "resentment," and other issues as he sought to explain and contextualize Wright's controversial comments. His speech closed with a plea to move beyond America's "racial stalemate" and address shared social problems.

On March 27, 2008, the Pew Research Center called the speech "arguably the biggest political event of the campaign so far," noting that 85 percent of Americans said they had heard at least a little about the speech and that 54 percent said they heard a lot about it. The New Yorker opined that the speech helped elect Obama as the president of the United States.

Events prior to the speech

Then-Senator Barack Obama, the son of a white American mother and black Kenyan father, launched a campaign in January 2007 to be the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential nominee. His election marked the first election of an African-American president in American history.

In March 2008, ABC News released a story examining the sermons of Obama's longtime pastor, Jeremiah Wright, in which Wright denounced the United States and accused the government of crimes against people of color.Andrew Sullivan. For The Record The Atlantic: The Daily Dish, March 16, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-18 Wright had said, among other things, "God damn America" for its racism and "for killing innocent people." Obama had begun distancing himself from Wright when he called his pastor the night before the February 2007 announcement of Obama's presidential candidacy to withdraw his request that Wright deliver an invocation at the event. However, Wright did attend the announcement, prayed with Obama beforehand, and was named to the Obama campaign's African American Religious Leadership Committee. When several videos of Wright's Christmas sermon appeared on YouTube in the first week of March 2008, Obama responded by going further than he had before, "vehemently disagree[ing with] and strongly condemn[ing] ... inflammatory and appalling remarks Wright made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents." On March 14, the campaign announced that "Rev. Wright is no longer serving on the African American Religious Leadership Committee."

Feeling that he had failed to sufficiently address and explain the context of his relationship with the pastor, Obama began writing the speech that became "A More Perfect Union". Obama's usual speechwriting practice during the 2008 campaign was to discuss major themes with speechwriter Jon Favreau, let Favreau write a draft, and then edit the result. However, on Saturday, March 15, Obama dictated a lengthy draft of this speech to Favreau, who edited the speech the next day. Obama stayed up until 3:00 am Sunday night working on the speech, and continued to work on it Monday and in the early hours of Tuesday. He sent his final draft of the speech to Favreau and campaign strategist David Axelrod. After reading Obama's final draft, Axelrod sent him an email saying "This is why you should be president."

Obama later said that as he wrote the speech, he tried to ensure that his mother, Ann Dunham, would have trusted its sentiments.

Speech Obama's speech began by quoting the preamble to the United States Constitution: "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union ...". Noting his proximity to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Obama highlighted the tension between the ideals of equal citizenship and freedom expressed in the Constitution and America's history of slavery, and connected the American Civil War and civil rights movement with the goals of his own campaign, "to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America."

Obama described his own family history—stating that "in no other country on Earth is my story even possible"—and connected both his multicultural background and his campaign with the American motto, "out of many, we are one". He mentioned that he achieved primary victories in "states with some of the whitest populations in the country" and in South Carolina, where he won with the support of white and black voters.

Obama then addressed the comments of Jeremiah Wright:

Obama went on to say that Wright's views were "not only wrong but divisive ... at a time when we need unity." He posed the rhetorical question of why he would have allied himself with Wright in the first place. Arguing that Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ had been misrepresented by "the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube", Obama spoke of Wright's service to the poor and needy, and of the role Wright played in Obama's own journey to Christianity.

Obama stated that, like other black churches, Trinity contained the full spectrum of the black community: "the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America." Similarly, he argued that Wright "contains within him the contradictions—the good and the bad—of the community that he has served diligently for so many years." Therefore, Obama stated:

Emphasizing that he was in no way justifying or excusing Wright's comments, Obama said that to dismiss Wright as a "crank or a demagogue  ... would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America—to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality."

Obama then invoked the history of racial inequality in the United States, first by paraphrasing a line by William Faulkner: "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past."The exact quote, from Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun, is "The past is never dead. It's not even past." He argued that many of the difficulties in African-American communities could be traced to the sufferings of previous generations under slavery and Jim Crow laws. Obama observed that, in the era in which African-Americans of Wright's generation grew up, segregation and degradation were common. Even blacks of that generation who, like Wright, surmounted obstacles to succeed in life often remained bitter and angry about their experiences with racism. Obama noted:

Obama then shifted to an expression of what he called "a similar anger" in the white community based on resentments over busing, affirmative action, and the way in which fears about crime are often met with accusations of racism. Obama stated that these resentments were rooted in legitimate concerns, and that dismissing them as misguided or racist only widened the racial divide and increased misunderstanding.

Obama described the resultant situation as "a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years." He pointed out that his "imperfect" candidacy is not the solution to racial division, but argued that it is possible and important for Americans of all races to work together to overcome it. To that end, he called for the African-American community to "[bind] our particular grievances—for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs—to the larger aspirations of all Americans" and for the white community to acknowledge the "legacy of discrimination ... and current incidents of discrimination." Obama insisted that progress on matters of race was both possible and actual:

Obama then presented a choice to his audience. On the one hand, the country could continue to address race "only as spectacle—as we did in the OJ trial—or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina—or as fodder for the nightly news." On the other hand, Americans could come together to solve the nation's problems, in particular the problems of education, health care, jobs moving overseas, the Iraq War, and caring for veterans.

Obama concluded his speech by relating an anecdote about a young white woman who organized for his campaign in South Carolina and the personal connection she made with an elderly black volunteer.

The 37-minute speech as actually delivered was essentially the same as the prepared text of the speech that had been distributed to the media, except for some minor differences.

Response

Reaction to Obama's speech was swift and widespread in the United States. Politicians, news media, members of the political punditry, academics, and other groups and individuals quickly weighed in on its significance and effectiveness. In the days following the speech, commentators debated (among other questions) its possible importance to American history, the extent to which Obama did or did not succeed in pushing questions about his association with Jeremiah Wright to the side, and the overall effect the speech would have on Obama's campaign and the contest with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

The speech achieved immediate popularity on YouTube, garnering 1.2 million views in the first 24 hours after the speech and 2.5 million views within the first few days.

Politicians

Democrats The response to the speech from Democratic politicians and activists was largely positive. Some characterized the speech as "honest", while others speculated about its possible significance for race relations in the United States.

Obama's only remaining opponent in the race for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton, as well as past Democratic presidential candidates, offered thoughts on the speech soon after it was given. Clinton said that she had not seen or read the speech, but that she was glad he had given it:

When asked a week later about the controversy about Obama's pastor that prompted, and was addressed by, Obama's speech, Clinton answered, "He would not have been my pastor. You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend ... hate speech [is] unacceptable in any setting ... I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."

Senator, former 2008 candidate and future President Joe Biden called Obama's speech powerful, truthful, and "one of most important speeches we've heard in a long time." Biden believed that Obama's speech would "come to represent an important step forward in race relations in our country."