Text of President Obama's famous "Yes we can" Speech
“Hello, Chicago.
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 first time in their lives, because they
believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that
difference.
It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor,
Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay,
straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world
that we have never been just a collection of individuals or 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’ve been told for so long
by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about 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 date in this election at this defining moment change has come to
America.
[read more]
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 the 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.
It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the
bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and 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 the Earth.
This is your victory.
And I know you didn’t do this just to win an election. And I
know you didn’t do it for me.
You did it because you understand the enormity of the task
that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that
tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in
peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave
Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to
risk their lives for us.
There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the
children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage or pay their
doctors’ bills or save enough for their child’s college education.
There’s new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new
schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.
The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may
not get there in one year or even in 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 the
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, calloused hand
by calloused hand.
What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot 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 can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of
service, a new spirit of sacrifice.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of
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’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and
pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let’s remember that it was a man from this state who first
carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded
on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.
Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic
Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and
determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.
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 tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help.
And I will be your president, too.
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores,
from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the
forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is
shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.
To those — to those who would tear the world down: We will
defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. 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.
That’s the true genius of America: that America can change.
Our union can be perfected. What we’ve already achieved gives us hope for what
we can and must achieve tomorrow.
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be
told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight’s about a woman who
cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood
in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann
Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when
there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her
couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the
color of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she’s 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.
At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes
dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the
ballot. Yes we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression
across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new
jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the
world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy
was saved. Yes we can.
She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in
Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people
that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.
A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin,
a world was connected by our own science and imagination.
And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a
screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best
of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.
Yes we can.
America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But
there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves — if our children
should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live
as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we
have made?
This is our chance to answer that call. 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 doubts 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.[/read]
Barack Obama
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