Perfecting Innocence

Abstract

This book concludes by considering an event that can be understood as a culmination of the Civil Rights Movement as one way to understand the relationship between the shifting rhetorical referents of American exceptionalism and American innocence. This event, Barack Obama’s election to the presidency, is tangible proof that the African American community’s pursuit of full equality in America has reached a high-water mark. This chapter also introduces Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor who married Barack and Michelle Obama, baptized their children, and served as one of Obama’s closest advisors when he was an Illinois state senator. Rev. Wright seemed to destroy the groundwork laid by Obama and his campaign team by sowing doubt about Obama’s narrative and thus his viability in the general election.