In his controversial June 2007 Hampton Roads speech, then-Sen. Barack Obama pledged to remove a metaphorical bullet from a wounded African-American community.

“We are all God’s children and we can all unite to work together to make sure the vulnerable, the aged, the sick and our children are cared for in this country,” he declared.

“We can take the bullet out if we work together as a team,” he announced in an accent tuned for his audience of African-American ministers in Virginia.

Since Obama made that speech, he has served almost four years in the White House, and African-Americans’ median wealth has crashed, their wages have flat lined, their unemployment has spiked, and their political power has waned.

The metaphorical bullet wound has turned septic.

Obama used his speech to call for stronger African-American families, saying, “If we want to stop the cycle of poverty, we must start with our families.”

But the percentage of adult African-Americans in poverty rose from 19.8 percent in 2007 to 23 percent in 2010, according to the Census Bureau. The percentage of African-American children in poverty rose from 34.5 percent to 39.1 percent in 2010. African-Americans’ formal unemployment rate jumped from 9 percent in June 2007 to 14.5 percent this August.

And the reality is worse: The percentage of African-Americans in the workforce fell from 58.6 percent in June 2007, down to 52.8 percent in August 2012. Less than half of young African-American men have full-time jobs.

The median wealth of African-American households has also shrunk dramatically, mostly because of the housing bubble created by the federal government’ effort in the 1990s and 2000s to boost home ownership among African-Americans.

In 2005, the median wealth of African-American households was $12,124. By 2009, it had plummeted to $5,677 — a 53 percent drop — according to a July 2011 report by the Pew Research Center.

In his speech, Obama pledged to “build more homes that people can afford,” but the percentage of African-Americans owning a house fell from a record 50 percent level in 2006, down to 45 percent in 2012.