In this clip, President Obama electrifies the crowd to its feet with poignant and much needed remarks on the Confederate flag and racial tensions in America during his somber but uplifting and inspiring eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the state senator and pastor at the Emanuel AME Church who was brutally murdered by a racist psychopath, along with eightt of his congregants, in Charleston last week. He speaks on the decision to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina and has some powerful words on racial relations in America, to an uproar of approval from the audience:

For many, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. we see that now. removing the flag from this states capitol would not be an act of political correctness, or an insult to the value of Confederate, sold but would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought, the cause of slavery, was wrong. The imposition of Jim Crow after the civil war, the resistance to civil rights for all people, was wrong. This is one step in an honest accounting of our history.

The crowd goes crazy. It’s rare to hear a politician address issues like this so directly, but Obama’s remarks should be the end of the “debate” about the legacy of the South’s treason and bigotry.

Watch it here:

Watch an extended version here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWVq1WnICqY