Sen. Barack Obama invoked Robert F. Kennedy on Saturday as he continued to try to distance himself from controversial statements made by his former pastor that are now widely circulating on the Internet. "Bobby Kennedy gave one of his most famous speeches on a dark night in Indianapolis, right after Dr. King was shot," Obama said. "He stood on top of a car."In reality, Kennedy, speaking in nearby Indianapolis on the night of April 4, 1968, spoke from the bed of a flatbed truck. "He delivered the news that Dr. King had been shot and killed," Obama continued. "At the moment of anguish, he said we've got a choice. We've got a choice in taking the rage and bitterness and disappointment and letting it fester and dividing us further so that we no longer see each other as Americans, but we see each other as separate and apart and at odds with each other. Or, we could take a different path that says we have different stories, but we have common dreams and common hopesÂ….I think about those words often, especially in the last several weeks because this campaign started on the basis that we are one America."
Saying "the forces of division have started to raise their ugly heads again," Obama began to point to his own former pastor from Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side. "Most recently, you heard some statements from former pastor that were incendiary and I completely reject, although I knew him and know him as somebody at my church who talked to me about Jesus," Obama said. "But if all I knew was those statements that I saw on television, I would be shocked. And it just reminds me that, you know, we've got a tragic history when it comes to race in this country. We've got a lot of pent up anger and bitterness and misunderstanding. But what I continue to believe in is that this country wants to move beyond these kinds of divisions. This country wants something different."
Obama told his audience in a high school gymnasium that he is someone who "has little pieces of America all in me." He suggested that controversies over his and other campaign surrogates could harm a more serious debate. "I will not allow us to lose this moment," he said. "When people say things like my former pastor said, you know, you have to speak out forcefully against them. But what you also have to do, though, is remember what Bobby Kennedy said that it is within our power to join together to truly make a United States of America."