Mrs. Obama to black women: "Believe in us."

The wife of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told the National Congress of Black Women on Sunday morning that a vote for her husband would be a vote "to not just change the players but to fundamentally change the game" and to "change the fate of black women."

Michelle Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, told the crowd of hundreds gathered in Washington for the group's annual "State of the Black Woman" address that with few exceptions including herself, every time black women get closer to shattering the glass ceiling, society changes the rules. "We can't afford to sit by while others claim to know more about our issues than we do, while we wait for a time that will never come," she said.

The text of her speech will be posted this week on the campaign Web site: www.barackobama.com