Speech

After Senator Barack Obama delivered his celebrated speech, &quote;A More Perfect Union,&quote; on March 18, 2008, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd noted that only Barack Obama &quote;could alchemize a nuanced 40-minute speech on race into must-see YouTube viewing for 20-year-olds.&quote; Pundits established the speech's historical eminence with comparisons to Abraham Lincoln's &quote;A House Divided&quote; and Martin Luther King Jr's &quote;I Have a Dream.&quote; The future president had addressed one of the biggest issues facing his campaign-and our country-with an eloquence and honesty rarely before heard on a national stage.The Speech brings together a distinguished lineup of writers and thinkers-among them Adam Mansbach, Alice Randall, Connie Schultz, and William Julius Wilson -in a multifaceted exploration of Obama's address. Their original essays examine every aspect of the speech-literary, political, social, and cultural-and are punctuated by Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson's reportage on the issue of race in the now historic 2008 campaign. The Speech memorializes and gives full due to a speech that propelled Obama toward the White House, and prompted a nation to evaluate our imperfect but hopeful union.