MR. BROKAW: Let me ask you about race. We have some recent polling on that, and, as you know, it's a whispered if not unspoken issue in your campaign. "Racism against blacks widespread in America?" That's the question. When African-Americans were asked that question, they said yes, 78 percent to 20 percent. Racial justice in America was the second half of this question. Again, we asked this question of African-Americans. Is it biased against blacks? Sixty-seven percent to, no, 27 percent. Do you see those numbers the same way?

SEN. OBAMA: You know, here's what I've said based on my life experience is that there have been profound changes since I was born, '61. When I accepted the Democratic nomination, it will be the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech, and here I am in a position to accept the Democratic nomination. That, that is a profound change that we should celebrate. We've still got work to do. And there is no doubt that discrimination still exists in various parts of American life. There's no doubt that--I think, I think...

MR. BROKAW: What about the margins that we saw in that poll?

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SEN. OBAMA: Well, I, I think that when you say it's widespread, people think of, "Well, I've, I've had an experience," and, and they maybe extrapolate all across this society. I think that's a mistake. I think the vast majority of Americans are people of goodwill. They want to do the right thing.

The biggest problem that we have in terms of race relations, I think, is dealing with the legacy of past discrimination which has resulted in extreme disparities in terms of poverty, in terms of wealth and in terms of income. Our inner cities are a legacy of what happened in the past. And the question is less assigning blame or rooting out active racism, because that's not the reason that those inner cities are in such bad shape, but rather figuring out are we willing to make the investments to deal with that past history so we can move forward to a brighter future? And that involves investing in early childhood education, fixing the schools in those communities, being willing to work in terms of job retraining. And those are serious investments. It also requires some responsibility on the part of the black community, and that's why I've talked about, for example, the need for fathers to re-engage in the lives of their children. We can't have more than half of African-American children growing up without knowing their dads or having an incidental contact with their dads and expect that that's not going to have some sort of impact.

MR. BROKAW: How many more times have you heard from Jesse Jackson about his comments about your speech to black families?

SEN. OBAMA: I haven't heard too much from Reverend Jackson. I, I--look, the fact is, Reverend Jackson used to preach similar issues and recognized the need for responsibility. What I've said is, it's not an either/or proposition. Those of us who are fortunate, those of us who are in positions of power, the society as a whole, we've got to take responsibility for creating ladders of opportunity for people. People who are poor, impoverished in inner cities and rural communities and, and barrios all across the country, they've got to be responsible for grabbing hold of those ladders and using individual initiative to walk up those ladders.

MR. BROKAW: Finally, Senator Obama, you said earlier when John McCain raised the possibility that the two of you could appear on a regular basis during the course of the campaign at town halls, you thought it was a good idea. We haven't heard anything more from you. Would you appear with him once, twice, three times a week in town halls at the end of the conventions until election day?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, you know, the problem that we're going to have right now is we've got three debates that--official debates that we have definitely scheduled, and debates take time. I mean, when you start having presidential debates, there's preparation and all that stuff. I want to make sure that...

MR. BROKAW: Well, that would be warmup. I mean, it would be batting practice.

SEN. OBAMA: Well, here's the thing, I mean, listen, I, I, I think--I can say a little something about debates since I had 22 of them in, in the Democratic primary. I don't know how many John had. At a certain point, they become, I think, less of a serious exchange of ideas and rather they have--they become competing talking points or, or press releases. I, I think it's important for us to have some hard-hitting debates. I think it's also important for us to spend time talking to the voters directly, and that's what I intend to do.

MR. BROKAW: Senator Obama, thanks very much for being with us today.

SEN. OBAMA: I had a great time.

MR. BROKAW: Hope you get some sleep on the way home.

SEN. OBAMA: Look forward to it.

MR. BROKAW: All right.

We'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. BROKAW: That's all for today. Watch "NBC Nightly News" tomorrow night, something very exciting. Brian Williams will be reported from Tehran where he'll interview Iran's president, Ahmadinejad. There should be some news coming out of that one.

And I'll be back next week, because if it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

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