The fact is in a city like Chicago, for example, unemployment in the black community is around 20 percent for adults, 35 percent for youth, they bail out the banks, public schools, there is a deep divide. We need a plan for reconstruction and redevelopment and I hope that - police are the gatekeepers but behind that gate are these problems of disparities and injustice.

On the one hand, to suggest that white poll watchers are going to black communities threatening and provocative. On the other hand is to suggest that if that same line of vote is he also resists making a commitment to honor the winner of the campaign, that there is another agenda.

Those powers that control the tent are not threatened at all by any activity that you engage in, in the shadows, that's not moving toward the tent. And I am rather convinced that we have a generation that is so preoccupied with life in the shadows, they never even focus on getting to the sunlight where you open up the big tent.

The Black public sector middle class teachers, policeman, firemen, and post office workers, those jobs have been on the decline but there hasn't been a corresponding increase in the private sector. What is especially painful is government policy bailed out the banks without making them make reinvestments for rebuilding. The result is 53-million Americans are food insecure, 50-million Americans are in poverty, 44 million are on food stamps, 26 million are looking for a job.

We made this inexplicable turn into Iraq, where we've lost lives, money, honour and the coalition on [George] Bush's watch. Surely he's not suggesting that if the Democrats win, things can get worse. I mean, all we can do now is to look at our field policy and change the course. We need more diplomatic outreach toward Iran, Syria and Middle Eastern allies, and less bluster and less threats, and fewer troops.

The American people on the ground need a clearer, stronger, Lyndon B. Johnson-type voice from their president.

For me, Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.