Obama Echoes King's Call For Unity at Atlanta Church

ATLANTA, Jan. 20 -- Sen. Barack Obama took the pulpit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s church here Sunday and drew a clear link between King's vision of an America free of segregation and racism and the central tenet of his own presidential campaign, a call for unity after years of partisan rancor and division.

"If Dr. King could love his jailer, if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds and erase the empathy deficit that exist in our hearts," Obama said.

The Illinois Democrat spoke to more than 2,000 people in the large, modern sanctuary of Ebenezer Baptist Church, across the street from the original structure where King and his father preached. Obama invoked the slain civil rights leader in defending himself against the argument, put forward repeatedly in recent weeks by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and her supporters, that by itself the inspirational rhetoric of the sort that he offers, and that King provided years ago, is not enough to achieve change.

King's rhetoric was twinned with the recognition of the need for hard struggle, and so, Obama said, would be his own. "Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap," he said.

Obama's appearance carried the symbolism of the first African American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency addressing the church of the civil rights giant whom he often echoes. The huge crowd, which included King's sister, embraced Obama with warm applause and shouted "amens," and swayed in unison with him as "We Shall Overcome" was sung by the church's 90-member choir.

The occasion took on added significance because of the turn the contest between Obama and Clinton has taken in recent weeks, and the emergence of race as a more pronounced factor in it. Obama arrived here after losing to Clinton Saturday in Nevada's Democratic caucuses and 12 days after losing to her in the New Hampshire primary.

For much of the past year, Obama offered himself as someone who, with his biracial background and conciliatory rhetoric, could transcend the nation's racial fissures. Only rarely did he speak in explicit terms about the historic nature of his candidacy. One of his primary challenges, in fact, has been winning over African American voters, including civil rights leaders from King's generation, who have remained loyal to former president Bill Clinton and, by association, his wife.

Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses seemed to convince some skeptics in the African American community that he could win over voters in Middle America, and his standing with black voters surged in opinion polls. A dispute that unfolded after the New Hampshire primary over remarks by the Clintons and several top campaign supporters that some in the Obama camp interpreted as racially tinged also generated support for Obama among African Americans. They saw the remarks as seemingly playing down the importance of King's role in passing the civil rights reforms of the 1960s.

The candidates settled that dispute in an informal detente at a debate last week, but Saturday's results in Nevada confirmed the emerging racial dimension in the race: Obama won about 80 percent of the black vote, according to opinion polls, while Clinton won Hispanics by 2 to 1 and white voters by 18 percentage points.

Obama's support from black voters bodes well for him in Saturday's primary in South Carolina, where African Americans make up at least half of the Democratic electorate. But if his campaign becomes overly reliant on black support, and continues to face deficits in other demographic groups, it would be facing a threat to the whole motivating theme of his campaign, as well as its path to victory.

That was a concern on the minds of some of Obama's supporters in the mostly black audience here Sunday, even as they loudly applauded his address.

"His purpose is not just for African Americans, but for all people looking for a change," said Cleveland Ewing, 50, an Atlanta entrepreneur. "It's different than being just from an ethnic standpoint." He hoped, he said, that message would continue to get across to voters.