I know that some conservatives were licking their lips and drooling at the prospect of Barack Obama speaking at Morehouse College. I know that there were several commentators who spent a ridiculous amount of time stating that Barack Obama would not delivered the same speech at Harvard as he did at Morehouse. I find it relatively ridiculous that one would expect the President of the United States to deliver the exact same speech at Harvard that he would at historically black college like Morehouse. This was another great speech by Barack Obama. He was funny, he was serious, he was inspiring and delivered a message to a group of black men that he couldn’t and shouldn’t deliver at Harvard, Yale or almost any other college in the United States. He tailored his speech to his audience. This is exactly what you’re supposed to do if you are a good public speaker.

Excerpts from President Barack Obama’s Morehouse commencement address:

It was that mission — not just to educate men, but to cultivate good men, strong men, upright men — that brought community leaders together just two years after the end of the Civil War. They assembled a list of 37 men, free blacks and freed slaves, who would make up the first prospective class of what later became Morehouse College. Most of those first students had a desire to become teachers and preachers — to better themselves so they could help others do the same.

A century and a half later, times have changed. But the “Morehouse Mystique” still endures. Some of you probably came here from communities where everybody looked like you. Others may have come here in search of a community. And I suspect that some of you probably felt a little bit of culture shock the first time you came together as a class in King’s Chapel. All of a sudden, you weren’t the only high school sports captain, you weren’t the only student council president. You were suddenly in a group of high achievers, and that meant you were expected to do something more.