Before we get to the new year, there are some things we need to remember. In 1961 as U.S. Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy, later assassinated during his run for President, said that America could elect a Black president within 40 years. Barack Obama was elected in 2008.
The comments below are from the victory speech of Obama in his first election.
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference. It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled — Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of red states and blue states; we are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day. It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America. …
But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to — it belongs to you. I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington — it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this earth. This is your victory….
The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year, or even one term, but America — I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you: We as a people will get there.
There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, callused hand by callused hand.
What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek — it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers. In this country, we rise or fall as one nation — as one people.
Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long…
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends… Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.” And, to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too….
And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright: Tonight, we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.
For that is the true genius of America — that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow….
And tonight, I think about all that she’s (referring to 106-year-old Anne Nixon Cooper) seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes, we can…
This is our moment. This is our time —to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.
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Of course, the “yes, we can” comes from Cesar Chavez and the farm worker movement “Se, Si Puede,” and “I have a dream” comes from the famous Martin Luther King Jr. speech. One of the parts from that speech not discussed much is this:
“In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men—yes, black men as well as white men—would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. . . .”
The current administration has said – that check is void. We say, Yes We Can pay that check.
MLK said, “I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
Obama’s dream was based on the same dream as Martin Luther King Jr. – the American dream. Not for a big house or a fancy car, but for justice and equality, for opportunity and fairness, for respect and dignity for all people. We want a country where people are judged by the content of their character and their actions not by the color of their skin, their religion, their language, their genitals, or any other superfluous condition.
President Lincoln had laid out that same dream at the Gettysburg Address on Nov. 19, 1863 when he said, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” This is the American Dream.
As Lincoln said, those who had given their lives for freedom had hallowed that ground. He reminded us what our job is: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
On January 6, 1941, during his State of the Union address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlined what he called the Four Freedoms: (1) Freedom of Speech and Expression: The right for everyone, everywhere, to speak their mind and express ideas without censorship. (2) Freedom of Worship: The right for every person to worship God (or their own beliefs) in their own way, universally. (3) Freedom from Want: Economic security for all, meaning a healthy peacetime life with economic understandings for every nation’s people. (4) Freedom from Fear: A world where nations are secure, with reduced armaments to prevent aggression, ensuring global peace.
It’s hard not to compare how FDR spent his January 6 and how the current occupant of the office spent his January 6 eighty years later.
These freedoms were to be the moral foundation of the Allied war effort which FDR knew we would soon be in. These freedoms were also to be the ideals to forge a democratic future. They made it clear what we were fighting for and heavily influenced future constitutions and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 shepherded by Eleanor Roosevelt. They still are our ideals.
The most storied first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, a driving force in her own right, chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She used her skills to convince diverse nations around the globe, the rich and poor, the north and south, the east and west, the colonizers and the colonized, monarchies and democracies and dictatorships, to come to consensus on fundamental rights for all people. The two main conventions adopted in 1948 are the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights (which the US has ratified) and the UN Convention on Economic and Social Rights (which the US has not ratified).
Eleanor insisted human rights begins at home including your workplace and your house; and it must include everyone including women, people of color, and the indigenous. The UN conventions have been copied or incorporated into many nations’ constitutions and laws. She also helped forge the Genocide Convention which unfortunately remains a relevant international commitment.
This is our country. One conceived in liberty; one tested in a brutal civil war to end slavery; one that solidified human rights internationally; one that showed it can pay a debt come due. We have made many mistakes and taken many wrong turns like the road we are on now. But this administration does not define us. The founders with a new idea of a government by the people without religious bosses, Lincoln recognizing that we cannot let that idea die, the Roosevelts pushing their ideas onto the international stage with the focus on human rights, MLK Jr. reminding us of the promise unpaid, and Obama making the dream concrete requires us to defeat this backlash.
Today we need a re-birth of freedom. So have some fun relaxing with family and friends over the New Year break and meet back in 2026 with renewed vigor to end this national nightmare. We can be and will be America again.