Barack Obama gave a brilliant speech tonight. I encourage everyone to go watch it on RealPlayer and/or go read the speech.
He spoke to the traditional values of the Democratic Party — opportunity, equality, justice, education — and his personal story shows why those values are so important. Then he also spoke to our need to see ourselves as one America:

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

He’s right, of course, and his lens on the dangers of segmenting our nation was wonderful.

He also reminded me of a speech that I don’t remember seeing, but I certainly remember reading. Twenty-eight years ago, the first black keynote speaker at a Democratic Convention was Barbara Jordan, and she gave a speech that is as powerful today as it was then.