John Kerry stood head bowed, eyes clamped shut in prayer, hand in hand with African-American icons Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
That moment, which will have delighted Democratic image makers, unfolded Sunday in a Florida Baptist church, and symbolized one of the Democrat challenger's key aims three weeks before polling day: To spark a huge black vote.
Democrat strategists believe a massive turnout in key states like Florida, where they claim a million African-Americans were disenfranchised in the bitterly contested 2000 election, could put Kerry in the White House.
Speaker after speaker at the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church where Kerry worshipped Sunday, complained that their vote had been scrubbed out four years ago.
A febrile cocktail of scripture and revenge filled the duck-egg blue church, with simple decor, blue stained glass windows, and rows of singing, swinging people, raising their hands above their heads in praise of God.
A poster on the wall read, "Faith unlocks every door in 2004. Winning 1,000 new souls for Christ."
Kerry's mission was not to save souls but to woo voters, hoping to capture still palpable fury over President George W. Bush's disputed 2000 election win.
"Never again will a million African-Americans be denied the right to exercise their vote in the United States of America, that is not going to happen," Kerry told the congregation.
Sharpton and Jackson, sometime rivals but united on stage for Kerry, fanned the flames, framing the election as part of the civil rights struggle.
"In 2000 our franchise was taken from us," Jackson claimed. "We were targeted, today it is getting worse. It is not just Florida, it's Minnesota, it's Colorado, it's Illinois. It's an ideology, it's a plan."
Sharpton warned Bush: "On November 2 we are going to the polls for the big payback," he said drawing applause and loud cheers.
But while Kerry basked in the reflected glow of Jackson and Sharpton, his appearance betrayed his difficulty in connecting with African-Americans.
As a Europhile Roman Catholic, married to a billionaire ketchup heiress, with two decades in the Senate after a privileged northeast Anglo-Saxon upbringing, Kerry seemed to have little in common with the worshippers. Many parishioners live near the church in a tatty corner of Miami, and around a third of the congregation of some 400 people raised their hands when Jackson asked who had a family member in jail.
Kerry has none of the affinity with African-Americans engrained in Bill Clinton by his southern Baptist upbringing, which helped him earn the moniker "the first black president" during eight years in the White House.
The senator arrived at the church, rocking with gospel music, directly after taking mass with Haitian Roman Catholics, and he seemed to find the transition difficult. Kerry clapped his hands, woefully out of time, and seemed to be feeling some self-conscious discomfort.
But glowing from testimony from Sharpton and Jackson, and the blessing of a priest who said he was fighting "liars and demons," Kerry's message was simple: He cared about issues vital to African-Americans, including healthcare, jobs and social deprivation, that Bush did not.
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