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GREENSBORO — The crowd in War Memorial Auditorium laughed as Sen. Barack Obama joked knowingly about being the first African American with a realistic chance at being his party's presidential nominee.

"When we started off, nobody thought we could win. Let's face it," Obama said Wednesday, sparking a wave of knowing chuckles through the audience.

"I mean, first of all, you've got a black guy named Barack Obama. That's already — you're starting in a hole."

Race was a topic that was much discussed in the line of people waiting to see Obama.

"This is an experience of a lifetime. It's a one-time shot, probably," said Ennis Moore, 54, a retired Army veteran from Dunn who said he never thought he would see an African American like himself vying for the presidency in earnest.

Issues of race were brought to the forefront of Obama's primary contest with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton this month when inflammatory sermons by Obama's former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago, came to light. Videos of those sermons showed Wright speaking angrily, suggesting that God would condemn America for systematic hostility toward African Americans.

After speaking and taking questions from the audience Wednesday, Obama met with a small group of reporters and was asked about his own experiences with racism and how he planned to deal with issues of race once in office.

"I've never experienced the same blatant racism that somebody 50 years earlier had experienced.

"The kinds of experience that I have are the ones that are, I think, shared by a number of other folks: security guards following you around when you're shopping, being stopped when you're going the speed limit and being questioned," Obama said.

"But nothing that I think would justify me being particularly angry or bitter."

Obama said that he does not meet many people who he would consider racists. He said the conversation about race in the United States needs to move beyond "this polarized back-and-forth about who is doing what to whom."

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He said the lingering effects of racism, slavery and the country's Jim Crow era can be seen in things such as "schools that are underfunded, people who are impoverished."

Obama then tied his thoughts on race into the themes of expanding health care coverage to all and improving the economy, saying that addressing fundamental economic problems would also help bridge racial divides.

"I think the real challenge for us is, are we willing to take on some of the legacies of the past that really have more to do with economic opportunity, education and making sure every child is getting a good chance at life?" Obama said.

Obama also addressed free trade, both during his speech and in the interview afterward.

International agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA were fodder for a fierce back-and-forth when Obama and Clinton campaigned in Ohio earlier this year.

Obama has pledged to renegotiate those agreements to better protect American workers.

"We have not had a White House that is negotiating these trade agreements with workers' interests in mind," Obama said.

When asked if he would include the White House of then-President Bill Clinton, who negotiated the original North American Free Trade Agreement, Obama said he would.

"President Clinton, with the support of first lady Hillary Clinton, made NAFTA one of the centerpieces of their economic plan," Obama said. "They obtained side agreements on labor and environmental standards that were not enforced and unenforceable. I think that was a mistake."

Worth noting is that both Hillary Clinton and Obama voted against the most sweeping trade deal of the Bush administration, the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com