Despite his challenging week and the fact that he knows this interview will focus on issues of importance to voters who seem to be strongly behind Obama, McCain is ready to talk about his plan to address African-American concerns and to discuss how race factors into the election, and why he doesn’t believe Obama is ready to be president.

Here are excerpts from our exclusive interview:

ESSENCE: Senator, I read and watched your May 15 speech. It seemed very optimistic. You envisioned many things: ending the war by 2013, improving public education, improving health care. But I am curious whether you have plans as president to improve some of the dire problems in the African-American community. In Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital, there is a serious AIDS crisis. Unemployment among African-American men is especially high, and there is an education gap that persists between Black and White children, despite class. What would a McCain administration do to help solve these problems?

McCain: First of all, my general overall mission is to continue to erase barriers that are based on race, wherever policies are needed, and, of course, to improve everyone’s opportunity. [Here he pauses to talk to Ted Kennedy’s chief of staff.] To answer your question and to be more specific, I believe education is clearly the remaining barrier, whether it is preschool or Head Start or elementary or K–12. We have an unacceptable situation in America today where lower-income people do not have the same access to the quality education that higher-income people have. We tried busing, but that didn’t work. So now we have to bring in new programs, which will improve education standards and choice and work with teachers…. But we also have to act at the federal level, update the No Child Left Behind Act. The No Child Left Behind Act was a good beginning, in my view. Those who want to scrap it completely—I respectfully disagree. But now we have learned the lessons of the first five or six or seven years of putting No Child Left Behind into practice. So let’s fix it, because it’s clear we have a two-tiered system of education in America.

ESSENCE: This will be a priority?

McCain: Absolutely.

ESSENCE: Republican Newt Gingrich said the Republicans should not ignore the African-American and Latino community, but this election year Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani didn’t bother to address the Black community. As the Republican nominee, how will you reach out to the Black community, not only in this election, but afterward?

McCain: Go to places and venues that would allow me to continue a dialogue with the African-American community. I will go to the NAACP convention.

ESSENCE: You will?

McCain: Oh, yeah. I don’t know any reason why not. I went to Selma and stood at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and talked about the need to include “forgotten Americans.” I will never as long as I live forget the beautiful women of Gees Bend, Alabama, with the quilts. They were singing spirituals. On the first occasion I could find in the White House I would have them sing again. It was so moving. There was a woman there who was 91 years old. Can you imagine the environment she lived in when she was 21? And yet, this woman was full of hope, compassion and forgiveness. But does that mean in my campaign I am going to get a majority of the African-American vote? Probably not. But what it does mean, what I’ve committed to, is assuring and promising all Americans whether they vote for me or not, I am going to be their president. Americans are sick and tired of partisanship and divisions along party lines that cause gridlock and frustration and lack of addressing the issues that confront America.

ESSENCE: If you were our next president, what would your cabinet look like? Would you consider African-Americans and Latinos at top positions?

McCain: Absolutely. Also I would include Democrats because we have to ask the best of America to serve our country at these difficult times.