Barack Obama’s speech, “A More Perfect Union,” delivered on Tuesday, March 18th, is the defining moment of his campaign for the Democratic nomination. In confronting a barrage of criticisms which had the potential to deliver a fatal blow to his candidacy, he rose to the occasion by speaking in a forthright manner on race in America. His speech is a landmark in American politics, regardless of the outcome of this election.

The Illinois senator was drawn into this discussion due to the vehement comments made by his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, while he delivered sermons at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Rev. Wright made disparaging statements about whites; he also presented America as a nation that deserved the attack which occurred on 9/11 as a just punishment for its own rapacious foreign policy. Barack Obama thus confronted the central question: How can he be affiliated with this divisive man while his campaign is based on racial harmony and national unity? There emerged an undercurrent of suspicion: Is Barack Obama really a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton in disguise?

The presidential candidate recognized the pressing need to allay these concerns. In his speech, he condemned the offensive statements by his pastor, but continued to embrace the man and the church he has belonged to for the last twenty years.

Obama declared that Rev. Wright had converted him to Christianity and that “he contains within him the contradictions—the good and the bad—of the community he has served diligently for so many years.” He explained that Trinity “embodies the black community in its entirety.” Obama sees his church as a microcosm of African-American history and culture: “The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and the successes, the love and yes the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience.”

Obama seized the controversy as an opportunity to discuss the racial tensions and resentments which continue to pervade American society. He insists these affect whites and Hispanics as well as blacks. He threw down the gauntlet by subtly challenging the audience: many Americans have close ties with individuals who make controversial or racist statements in private conversations but are nonetheless considered to be otherwise endearing and caring citizens. Obama did this by drawing a contrast between his pastor and his white grandmother:

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother—a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

Indeed, if all Americans were to disown those friends or relations who make racist, politically incorrect or controversial statements, they would have few relationships left.

The presidential contender has recast his candidacy. He presents himself as embodying a new generation that is not locked into the narrow categories of the past few decades and who will fight to overturn remaining racial barriers. He presents a vision of a re-generated America which will come closer and closer, by the efforts of successive generations, to the original messianic aspiration of the Founding Fathers: a nation in which all individuals are free, have equal rights and opportunities and are unified in their patriotism.

The real story in this controversy is not that some black church leaders and  their congregants harbor the resentments and prejudices displayed by Rev. Wright but that they and the vast majority of African-Americans are willing to make a leap of faith into the new world which Barack Obama’s candidacy represents. The question remains: Are the majority of white and Hispanic voters also willing to make that leap of faith?

The Clintons have tried desperately to pigeonhole Barack Obama as a black man with limited electoral appeal. Yet, as the speech illustrates, he understands the deeper aspirations of the American people in this election. Ultimately, like other trailblazing American leaders before him, Barack Obama is not asking the electorate to support him based merely on his policies; he is asking them to support him based on the formation of a new political alignment.

If one listens carefully to Barack Obama, one will notice that he is not a typical Democratic politician. For example, he rarely exalts the glories of his own party. He has, in fact, systematically disassembled its previous power base: his funding and support are independent of the traditional Democratic apparatus. He is moving away from the previous polarizing racial ideology which Democrats have used to win elections. He has not won the support of blacks by feeding into the failed and foolish doctrine of victimology. Instead, he is calling upon them to embrace the American Dream and to work alongside their white and Hispanic “brothers and sisters.”

Barack Obama’s message resonates with African-Americans and with citizens across party lines because he is campaigning on an historic platform to fulfill American ideals and to unify citizens in the pursuit of common objectives. He is not adopting the quasi-Marxist slogans of the baby boom Democrats who were mired in the battles of the 1960’s and who for decades later espoused doctrines which contained an implicit hatred of American culture and traditions.

As such, Barack Obama continues to be a breath of fresh air in the political landscape. In confronting a serious threat to his candidacy Obama delivered “A More Perfect Union”—a speech that will have lasting appeal. In essence, contrary to the expectations of many pundits, the Rev. Wright controversy has not sabotaged Obama’s candidacy. Instead, the issue has served to reveal that Barack Obama can play a unique role in American politics as one who can straddle the racial divides; he is in fact emerging as among the most talented leaders of our time.

-Grace Vuoto is the Executive Director of the Edmund Burke Institute for American Renewal. The opinions expressed are her own.