The speech on race by Barack Obama today brought tears to my eyes. It resonated deeply in my heart, filling it with an excitement and hope for new possibilities in the world. I learned later that it had that effect on a wide spectrum of people. I think it is fair to say that in the United States of America, a healing process began.

Some will feel the ripple effects of this event sooner than others, but in one way or another, everyone will benefit from it. A light was shined on the darkness of racism. Consciousness asserted itself over the forces of unconsciousness.

How great of a speech was it? Here is what Chris Matthews of MSNBC said on his show, Hardball: “We have never heard anything like this…One of the great speeches of American History.” He even said it should be read to first graders and that college graduates should read it before entering the work force.

Michelle Barnard, an MSNBC analyst, said “It was the most important speech I have heard in my lifetime.” One Republican strategist on MSNBC, Joe Watkins, someone who is not in the habit of singing the praises of Democrats, called it “a towering speech.”

Sally Quinn of the Washington Post called it the “most important speech on race since Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.” She also called it “a gift to America.”

The Dallas Morning News, a highly conservative newspaper, was also effusive in its praise: “Has any major U.S. politician in modern times ever given a speech about race in America as unflinching, human and ultimately hopeful as the one Barack Obama delivered yesterday? Whether or not the speech satisfies critics of Mr. Obama’s close relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, this remarkable address was one for the history books.”

Even Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network called it “Sweeping and Moving.”

But what about the average man and woman on the street? Here is a reader’s comment from washingtonpost.com

My wife and I watched Obama’s speech this morning. We are independent, secular conservatives and had been completely polarized by the Reverend Wright’s rants . If our reactions are any indication, Obama has more than repaired the damage. We both had watery eyes when he finished. My wife called her sister to compare notes She’s a fundamentalist Republican. Even she had gotten emotional. She related it to her childhood experience in Eastern Oklahoma where she was treated as white trash with Indian blood.

This man is phenomenal. Afterward, we watched the press commentaries for only a few minutes and turned the set off. Nothing they were saying seemed to matter when compared to what we had just heard.

Jerry Brown, Huntington, NY

I know not everyone shares this opinion, but you can gather that something truly remarkable happened today to generate this kind of passion and emotion.

Who could be better to bring the racial divide to a close than a man who is a manifestation of the races coming together?

No, the healing cannot happen instantly. But what starts today can grow in its power to engulf the consciousness of not only the people of the United States, but of the world.

Sure, there will be some who will refuse to transcend the fragmentation that is so widespread. There will still be white supremacist. There will still be blacks holding onto hatred born of past oppression. But the healing has begun. Today was an opportunity born out of a crisis.

In the history of this country, there has never been so much polarization as there is now: white vs. black, rich vs. poor, left vs. right, old vs. young. We can heal and come together and solve our problems, or blame, point fingers, fan the flames of hatred, and fail to meet the challenges and demands of this unique time and age.

I, for the first time since the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, back in 1968, when I was 13-years-old, have hope that we can make this step towards wholeness. This opportunity may not come again in our lifetime. It is time to drop preconceived ideas of how things are and discover the truth that we are all one. It’s time to drop rigid certitudes and embrace an imagination as infinite as the human spirit.

In case you missed this speech, here is a link to it plus the transcript of the speech.

Barack Obama Speech — Video and Transcript