While some question the impact of preaching from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ on Senator Obama's thinking, the influence of one of Trinity's most recommended authors on Obama is clear. 

Three of Randall Robinson's books are available for purchase on Trinity's website. One, entitled "The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks," is particularly important to understanding Obama's notion of reparations.

"Robinson founded the TransAfricia Forum in 1977, which-according to its mission statement, serves as a ‘major research, educational and organizing institution for the African-American community, offering constructive analysis concerning U.S. policy as it affects Africa and the African Diaspora (African-Americans and West Indians who can trace their heritage back to the dispersion of Africans that occurred as a result of the Transatlantic slave trade) in the Caribbean and Latin America.'"

After moving to the island of St. Kitts, Robinson wrote of his decision to leave the U.S. in another of his books featured on the Trinity website: "Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from his Native Land."

‘I am a sixty-four year old African-American. New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for."

"I think the reparation we need right here in South Carolina is investment, for example in our schools.  I did a town hall meeting in Florence, South Carolina, in an area called the corridor of shame.  They've got buildings that students are trying to learn in that were built right after the Civil War. And we've got teachers who are not trained to teach the subjects they're teaching and high dropout rates.  We've got to understand that there are corridors of shame all across the country.  And if we make the investments and understand that those are our children, that's the kind of reparation that are really going to make a difference in America right now."

"The legacy of slavery is immeasurable, but the best strategies for moving forward would be vigorously enforcing our anti-discrimination laws in education and job training."

"And that [referring to his K-12 education plan] would all cost about $18 billion a year -- a significant increase in federal funding, focused on schools all across the country, but with a great emphasis on poor urban and rural school districts that really need resources."

"There will always be differences in the abilities and achievements of individuals, but achievement differences that correlate with race must never be tolerated. That gap must be fully closed...To do what is necessary, of course, will require a virtual Marshall Plan of federal resources, far in excess of anything contemplated between the nearly touching poles of conventional palliatives. (p.107)

"Like slavery, other human rights crimes have resulted in the loss of millions of lives.  But only slavery, with its sadistic patience, asphyxiated memory, and smothered cultures, has hulled empty a whole race of people with inter-generational efficiency... It is a human rights crime without parallel in the modern world.  For it produces its victims ad infinitum, long after the active stage of the crime has ended. (p. 216)

"Whether the monetary obligation is legally enforceable or not, a large debt is owed by America to the descendants of America's slaves. (p. 231)

"With respect to the question of compensation to African American, it has been proposed by Robert Westley, in ‘Many Billions Gone,' that a private trust be established for the benefit of all African Americans.  This trust would be funded out of the general revenues of the United States to support programs designed to accomplish ‘the education and economic empowerment of the trust beneficiaries (African Americans) to be determined on the basis of need.' (p. 244)

"I believe such a trust would have to be funded for at least two successive K-through-college educational generations, perhaps longer.  Among other programs funded from the trust would be special K-12 schools through the United States with residential facilities for those black children who are found to be at risk in unhealthy family and neighborhood environments." (pp. 244-245) [emphasis added]

"Lastly, I would urge the United States government to begin making amends to Africa and the Caribbean by initiating discussions that might constructively start with an American commitment toward debt relief, fair trade terms, and significant monetary compensation." ("The Debt," p. 246)