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Barack Obama’s “Yes, We Can!” Speech

The Historic Inaugural Address from America’s First Black President

William Spivey
Black History Month 365

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Photo by Lubo Minar at Unsplash

Donald Trump will give his second inaugural speech in a few days. I went back and read the transcript of his first speech in 2017. Trump criticized America throughout, especially its inner cities, circling back to target Detroit.

“Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation, an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

“And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky.”

Trump spent a lot of time talking about who would not be forgotten, clearly meaning the white people who supported him.

Eight years earlier, Barack Obama gave his inauguration speech. Not only was it historic, given by America’s first Black president, but it was inclusive and addressed to all Americans. Here are his words as a reminder of what a president could be, and…

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