we, the people, in order to form a more perfect union 221 years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched america s improbable experiment in democracy. the document they produced was eventually signed, but ultimately unfinished. it was stained by this nation s original sin of slavery. i chose to run for president at this moment in history because i believe deeply 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, that we may not look the same and may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren. this belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the american people. but it also comes from my own story. i m the son of a black man from kenya and a wh
wave of young africans to travel abroad to get an education. they ended up getting married, having me. my father decided he wanted to get his ph.d., obtained a scholarship to go to harvard. he moved there, but the separation made it difficult for them to stay together, not to mention this was an interracial couple at the brink of the civil rights movement. my mother was from kansas, and she was born to a pair of fairly typical midwestern white americans in a lot of ways. what made them remarkable was that they ended up being more open-minded and accepting of difference and diversity than i think was maybe typical of their
the important thing for us now is to recognize that we have situations in america in which race continues to play a part, that class continues to play a part. and when disaster strikes, it tears the curtain away from the festering problems that we have beneath them. and black and white, all of us should be concerned. for, i think, a lot of african americans, hurricane katrina was like 9-11 in terms of shaking the foundations of their relationship to this country. i think that was probably central to the narrative that wound up ultimately giving barack obama an opportunity to run for president of the united states. hi. how are you? how are you? how have you been? happy new year to you. hi. happy new year. throughout 2006, the drumbeat was building for him to become a
we were taking a walk. and he said, i ve decided to go to law school. i said, okay. and that s reasonable. why? and he talked about power, that he didn t see getting enough power to change things through community organizing. he wanted to have some kind of platform to be able to create greater change. i was 27 when i got to law school. it meant that i had gotten a lot of errant energy out of the way. i knew why i was there and what i wanted to get out of it. when i first met him, he
there was a lot of anger and tension and division in the community about that because in the african american community, politicians believe that you should always wait your turn, and many voters feel that way too. i think obama came to chicago with the thought and the ambition of getting into politics. he was extremely ambitious. nobody writes a book about their life when they re 30 years old, unless he s got a plan. it was when i started doing project vote in 1992 that i came to appreciate the need for a more effective political movement within the african american community. i represent the children of the civil rights movement who ve had opportunities to study and advance as a consequence of the sacrifices that our parents made. and that provides this generation with special