I.Information about the speech

"A More Perfect Union” was delivered on March l8, during Obama’s campaign for presidency. The speech was written against a rather complex background, as a response to the Jeremiah Wright controversy. Reverend Wright was the pastor of Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and also a participant in Obama's campaign. In March 2008, ABC News released a story examining the sermons of Reverend Wright in which he denounced the United States and accused the government of crimes against people of color. Wright had said, among other things, “God damn America “for its racism and "for killing innocent people." Before this Obama had begun to distance himself from his pastor and right after the controversy Obama again denounced Wright's offending remarks. But Obama felt he should more sufficiently address and explain the context of his relationship with the Reverend. Therefore, he wrote the speech that became "A More Perfect union.” This speech received general positive response, and is regarded by some as one of the biggest events in his campaign, a speech which helped him win the election.

The speech was delivered at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It began with these words "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union “from the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Then Obama pointed out that one of the tasks of his campaign was to continue the long march "for a more just, more equal more free, more caring and more prosperous America “and that he believed deeply that they could not solve the challenges of the time unless all Americans solved them together by perfecting the union.

In the following part Obama discussed the race issue which had taken a divisive turn in the previous couple of weeks. He condemned as he had done already, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that had caused such controversy, stating that Reverend Wright's words were not only wrong but also divisive. However, Obama candidly and objectively described the man as he knew him and his relationship with his former pastor. Although Obama sharply disagreed with Reverend Wright's political views, he said he could not disown him as his former pastor. Obama pointed out that race was an important issue that neither whites nor blacks could ignore. He stressed the complexities of the race issue in the U.S. by addressing the subjects of racial tensions, white privilege, and race and inequality in the United States, and discussing black "anger,” and white "resentment."

Then Obama appealed to both the black and the white communities to do their part to continue on the path to a more perfect union. He called on the American people to transcend distractions and focus on major issues facing America today, such as education, health care, employment, and the war in lraq.

In the last part of his address Obama told the story of an ordinary young white woman and an elderly black man participating in his campaign, as he saw the story as a sign of the beginning of a union. Obama concluded his speech with these words:” It is where our union grows stronger.

And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two hundred and twenty-one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where perfection begins."

II. information about Barack Obama

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was from Kenya, Africa, and his mother Stanley Ann Dunham was a white woman from Kansas, the United States. When Obama was a small child his father went to Harvard University to pursue his study. Although his mother loved his father, for economic reasons the family had to be separated. After the divorce, Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro in Hawaii. Obama went to live in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather, and attended local schools in Jakarta from age six to ten.

In 1971 Obama returned to Hawaii and lived with his maternal grandparents. He attended Punahou School, one of the best schools in Hawaii. Later Obama graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Political Science and Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor (J.D.). While in Harvard, he became an editor of the Harvard Law Review, the first African-American student to be elected to this post. Obama was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the

2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hilary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 general election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain and was inaugurated as President on January 20,2009.

Obama married Michelle Robinson in 1992, and they have two daughters. He won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."