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Invoking Lincoln, Obama speech aims at racial unity

March 18, 2008 By NICOLAUS MILLS Nicolaus Mills, a professor of American studies at Sarah Lawrence College, is author most recently of "Winning the Peace: The Marshall Plan and America's Coming of Age as a Superpower."

Barack Obama went to Philadelphia, the city of the Founding Fathers, to deliver the most important speech to date of his presidential campaign and to deal with the crisis that has arisen over his close friendship with his pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose incendiary statements on race set off a political backlash last week when tapes of them were aired on television.

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