While his speech in Philadelphia is unlikely to win over those who oppose his candidacy because of his race, it may serve a similar purpose as Kennedy's talk to Protestant ministers in Houston in 1960 - dispelling concerns among some voters about his core beliefs, analysts said.
Mr Obama's speech 'made clear that his own views differed' from those expressed by his former pastor, just as Kennedy made it clear that a Catholic president would not answer to the Vatican, said Mr Ted Sorensen, 79, who helped Kennedy write the Houston speech, a turning point in his race for the White House.
'The parallels with Kennedy instantly came to mind,' said political scientist Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution in Washington.
In his sermons, Reverend Jeremiah Wright had suggested that an oppressive US foreign policy had incited the Sept 11 attacks and that the government had a role in spreading the Aids virus in the black community.
Mr Obama said in his speech that his own mixed heritage has taught him that 'we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes'.
In his 1960 speech, Kennedy voiced similar hopes, saying he believed in 'an America where religious intolerance will someday end, where all men and all churches are treated as equals' and where 'there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind'.
BLOOMBERG