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In 2004, then-U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama made his national political debut by delivering an eloquent and moving keynote address at the Democratic National Convention about the role of race and a more perfect union in this nation that would aspire to provide educational and economic opportunities for all. Four years later, he became the first African-American to be elected president of the United States. But, according to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, the second African-American to serve in that role, despite how far the nation has progressed, it still has a long way to go.

“We have a Black president. We’ve had two Black secretaries of state. We have Black CEOs. Obviously African-Americans are pushing way into territories that, probably, my grandparents would never have thought possible,” Rice said on CBS’s Face the Nation, but added that race will always be a factor in American life.

“It is a birth defect with which this country was born out of slavery; we’re never really going to be race blind,” she said. (more…)