A Message That Transcends Race

Michelle Obama embraces her audience. (By Sara D. Davis -- Associated Press)

She presented herself as an everywoman ("My father . . . was a Joe the Plumber himself") and borrowed parts of her husband's stump speeches as she told the crowd, over and over again, "Barack Obama gets it." The audience, at Rocky Mount High School, was perhaps 80 percent black, and she delivered her line about the old folks who "thought they'd never live to see the day" and a plea for them to vote to avoid disappointment again. "For too long, we've been talking about what could have been," she said. But that was a bit part of her speech, which spent more time on Iraq and health care.

The talk to the Baptists was more overt. "God is good," she said after taking the stage in a blue suit with sparkles at the collar. "God has built this church into a community that serves all of his children." She read her words carefully from two teleprompter screens on the stage with her, and stood in front of four American flags. "We know that we've only made it this far because of those who came before us," she told the church leaders. She quoted from Luke -- "to whom much is given, much is expected" -- then turned colloquial.

"Don't we deserve leaders who get it?" she asked.

"Yes!" the audience called back.

"Well, Barack Obama gets it," she said.

"Yes, he does!"

"Barack Obama gets it, that's all I'm tryin' to tell people."

The audience stood to applaud, and answered almost every line of her speech with shouts of "yeah" and murmurs of assent.

"At times like these, I always remember what Jesus told us," she said. "You are the light of the world."

"Yes! Yes!" they called back.

She urged the ministers to remind parishioners "that this time is our time. Let our light shine."

For the Baptists, it was almost literally an answer to their prayers. In their impromptu concert before Obama appeared, they had sung many of the old favorites, including "We Shall Overcome." But there was a decidedly upbeat theme to the spirituals they struck up, alternating between sides of the room: "Victory Is Mine," and "Everything's Gonna Be Alright," and "We've Come a Long Way, Lord."

We've come a long way, Lord, a mighty long way

We've borne our burdens in the heat of the day

But we know the Lord has made the way

We've come a long way, Lord, a mighty long way.