Most people who meet my wife quickly conclude that she is remarkable. They are right about this. She is smart, funny and thoroughly charming. Often, after hearing her speak at some function or working with her on a project, people will approach me and say something to the effect of, you know, I…
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Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (US /bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/ bə-RAHK hoo-SAYN oh-BAH-mə; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He is the first African American to have served as president, as well as the first born outside the contiguous United States. He previously served in the U.S. Senate representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008, and in the Illinois State Senate from 1997 to 2004. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, two years after the territory was admitted to the Union as the 50th state. He grew up mostly in Hawaii, but also spent one year of his childhood in Washington State and four years in Indonesia. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988 Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, he became a civil rights attorney and professor, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Obama represented the 13th District for three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, when he ran for the U.S. Senate. Obama received national attention in 2004, with his unexpected March primary win, his well-received July Democratic National Convention keynote address, and his landslide November election to the Senat
The presidency is a relay race, requiring each of us to do our part to bring the country closer to its highest aspirations.
A capitalism shaped by the few and unaccountable to the many is a threat to all. Economies are more successful when we close the gap between rich and poor and growth is broadly based. A world in which 1% of humanity controls as much wealth as the other 99% will never be stable.
This is the paradox that defines our world today. The world is more prosperous than ever before and yet our societies are marked by uncertainty and unease.
Some of the discontent is rooted in legitimate concerns about long-term economic forces. Decades of declining productivity growth and rising inequality have resulted in slower income growth for low- and middle-income families. Globalisation and automation have weakened the position of workers and…
The anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim and anti-refugee sentiment expressed by some Americans today echoes nativist lurches of the past—the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Know-Nothings of the mid-1800s, the anti-Asian sentiment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and any number…
[Obama dispels protestor] All right, I think we’re okay now. I notice this has been happening everywhere, and I keep on telling folks you’ve got to organize your own rallies. If you’re confident about the other guy, just go to his rallies. I feel confident about my candidate. That’s why I’m at this…
And I told you then, eight years ago, that I wasn’t a perfect person and I wasn’t going to be a perfect President, but what I guaranteed you, though, was that I would work every single day as hard as I could to make sure that working families all across this country got a better deal.
Race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society. Now, I've lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were ten, twenty, thirty years ago — no matter what some will say [...] but we are still not where we need to be.
Stark inequality is corrosive to our democracy.
Our democracy will not work without the sense that everyone has an economic opportunity.
Democracy does not require uniformity. Our founders argued, quarreled, eventually they compromised. And they expected us to do the same. But they knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity. The idea that for all our outward differences, we are all in this together. We all rise and…
By almost every measure, America is a better, stronger place than when we started.
The long sweep of America has been defined by forward motion.
That's what we mean when we say our nation has been exceptional. Not that we've been flawless from the start, but that we've been able to change.
These rights, while self-evident, have never been self-executed.
[crowd chants]: 'Four More Years!' Obama: 'Hey, I can't do that.'
Tonight it is my turn to say thanks. Whether we have seen eye-to-eye, or rarely agreed at all, the conversations I have had with you [...] have kept me honest, kept me inspired, and kept me going. And every day I have learned from you
You can tell that I'm a lame duck, because nobody is following instructions! Everyone have a seat.