The most presidential lorem ipsum in history.
I'd been inspired by the civil rights movement - by all the clear-eyed, straight-backed, courageous young people who'd boarded buses and traveled down South to march and sit at lunch counters, and lay down their lives in some cases for freedom. I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's story.
Out of many, one. It's that folks are hungry for change - they're hungry for something new. I wanted to be part of something larger. But we cannot walk away this time. This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life.
But I also get the sense that there's a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any single cause or issue. They are moral problems, rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man. This is a problem that's brought together churches and synagogues and mosques and people of all faiths as part of a grassroots movement. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
Tonight is a particular honor for me because - let's face it - my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. If you're working forty hours a week, you shouldn't be living in poverty. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. There need not be contradiction between development and tradition.
Our conscience can't rest so long as 37 million Americans are poor and forgotten by their leaders in Washington and by the media elites. Too much blood has been shed.
Thank you very much everybody.