*Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, a one time U.S. senator from North Carolina, flew to Grand Rapids, Michigan Wednesday to announce his endorsement for Sen. Barack Obama.

      Edwards and Obama appeared together at Van Andel Arena, and Edwards offered a 15-minute endorsement for the Illinois senator after first saluting the hard work and determination of Obama's rival, Hillary Clinton.

      “There is one man who knows how to create lasting change that you have to build from the ground up. One man who knows it is time to build one America, not two, and that man is Barack Obama,” Edwards told the enthusiastic crowd.

John Edwards & Barack Obama

      In other Obama news, the Washington Post recently featured an article about young campaign supporters of the Democratic candidate who encountered racist attitudes and anti-black sentiment while working in small, rural, white towns across Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio – all states won by Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

      In the factory town of Muncie, Ind., Danielle Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Barack Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot. "The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black person,'" recalled Ross, a onetime university student who is white and just turned 20. "People just weren't receptive."

      The Post article continues:

      ...Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president. The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.

      Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

      Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

      On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.

      The bigotry has gone beyond words. In Vincennes, the Obama campaign office was vandalized at 2 a.m. on the eve of the primary, according to police. A large plate-glass window was smashed, an American flag stolen. Other windows were spray-painted with references to Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other political messages: "Hamas votes BHO" and "We don't cling to guns or religion. Goddamn Wright."

      Later, there would be bomb threats to three Obama campaign offices in Indiana, including the one in Vincennes, according to campaign sources.

Curious George Obama t-shirt

      Meanwhile, a t-shirt for sale at a restaurant in Marietta, Georgia has sparked nationwide outrage for its depiction of Barack Obama's name under the image of cartoon character Curious George eating a banana.

      Mike Norman, the owner of Mulligan's Bar and Grill, apparently has a history of being politically incorrect – usually regarding images disparaging Latinos and immigration. This latest stunt has drawn the ire of local residents and civil rights leaders, who organized a protest in front of the venue and asked Norman to stop selling the t-shirts.

      According to Atlanta's 11Alive.com, Norman said he finds nothing wrong with comparing the image of Curious George to Obama.

      "I saw the cartoon on TV, and I looked, and this was the ears and the hairline, and the big smile, and Obama has all three," Norman said.

      Protesters felt differently.

      "A monkey eating a banana -- that's a historical stereotype of how African Americans have been depicted on a number of occasions," said Rev. Dwight Graves of the SCLC.      

      Norman said he has sold out of his stack of 50 t-shirts. He was planning to donate the money from the shirts to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. But MDA officials said they do not want Norman's money. They said that their attorneys were drawing up a letter asking him to stop using the name of the MDA in connection with sales of the shirts.