Page 10 The Skanner January 18, 2017
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Yes We Did: Obama Rallies All Americans in Farewell Speech
By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Contributor
“
AP PHOTO/PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS, FILE
“Y
es, we did!”
Those were the words that
Barack Hussein Obama ended
his farewell speech to Ameri-
ca on Tuesday, eight years aft er he won
the presidency, campaigning on the slo-
gan, “Yes, we can!”
For nearly an hour, the nation’s 44th
Commander-In-Chief reminded ev-
eryone that history will not only show
him to be the fi rst — and perhaps only
— Black president, but time will reveal
just how well a job Obama did aft er in-
heriting a nation at war, reeling in debt
and cowering in fear every time Home-
land Security raised the threat level.
Passing the Commander-In-Chief
baton to Donald Trump has revealed
that a large swath of Americans al-
ready miss Obama, First Lady Michelle
Obama and the First Family.
“It’s easy to lose sight of that in the
blizzard of our minute-to-minute
Washington news cycles. But America
President Barack Obama speaks during his farewell address Jan. 10 at McCormick Place in Chicago.
is a story told not minute to minute, but
generation to generation,” Obama told
unfi nished.”
Obama noted that he fulfi lled his goal
of making quality, aff ordable
health care not a privilege, but
a right.
Aft er nearly 100 years of talk,
and decades of trying by pres-
idents of both parties, that’s
exactly what he did, adminis-
tration offi cials said.
Obama said the hardscrabble streets
of cities like Chicago is where change
happens.
“Aft er eight years as your President,
‘Democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity;
the idea that for all our outward diff erences, we are
all in this together; that we rise or fall as one’
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the more nearly 18,000
spectators who crammed
into Chicago’s McCor-
mick Place Lakeside Cen-
ter to see him deliver his
farewell address, while
tens of millions more
watched on television.
Obama
continued:
“We’ve made America
a better, stronger place
for the generations that
will follow. We’ve run
our leg in a long relay of
progress, knowing that
our work will always be
“
toric achievements during his two-
term tenure, noting that America is
safer. He mentioned the dismantling
of al Qaeda’s leadership, including the
operation that killed Osama bin Lad-
en. Obama,also spoke of his support of
the historic and sweeping rights and
protections for LGBT Americans, and
making the country’s immigration sys-
tem fairer and safer while also tackling
poverty and investing in communities.
Expanding voting rights, increasing
transparency in government and re-
versing electoral gerrymandering that
has contributed to increased polariza-
tion in Congress, were also among the
issues the president tackled in his fare-
well address.
In speaking of his successor, Obama
vowed a peaceful transition. However,
he also told Americans not to simply go
along with Trump.
“Democracy does not require uni-
formity. Our founders quarreled and
comprised, and expected us to do the
same,” Obama said. “But they knew that
democracy does require a basic sense
of solidarity; the idea that for all our
outward diff erences, we are all in this
together; that we rise or fall as one.”
The president received some of the
loudest cheers of the night when he
spoke about the racial tensions in the
country.
“Aft er my election, there was talk of
a post-racial America,” he said. “Such
a vision, however well-intended, was
never realistic. For race remains a po-
‘We’ve made America a better, stronger place
for the generations that will follow. We’ve run
our leg in a long relay of progress, knowing
that our work will always be unfi nished’
I still believe that. And it’s not just
my belief. It’s the beating heart of our
American idea — our bold experiment
in self-government,” he said. “It’s the
conviction that we are all created equal,
endowed by our Creator with certain
unalienable rights, among them life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It’s the insistence that these rights,
while self-evident, have never been
self-executing; that ‘We, the People,’
through the instrument of our democ-
racy, can form a more perfect union.”
The president highlighted some his-
tent and oft en divisive force in our so-
ciety.”
While progress has been made,
Obama said, “we’re not where we need
to be.”
Obama added: “All of us have more
work to do. Aft er all, if every economic
issue is framed as a struggle between a
hardworking, White middle class and
undeserving minorities, then workers
of all shades will be left fi ghting for
scraps while the wealthy withdraw fur-
ther into their private enclaves.”
For a transcript of the full speech, visit
https://www.whitehouse.gov/farewell.