To bring about real change, we both have to highlight a problem and make people in power uncomfortable, but we also have to translate that into practical solutions and laws that can be implemented and we can monitor and make sure we’re following up on.

I was proud that John Lewis was a friend of mine. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

It’s not even close.

We know we can’t stop every act of violence, every act of evil in the world.

How did this become such a partisan issue?

This was months before the first official Freedom Rides.

Change is going to require everybody’s participation. Or at least we act as if it was inevitable. This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. That’s why we’re here today. That can’t be right.

Oak Creek. (Applause. This is not seen as an infringement on the Second Amendment. Some of you may recall, at the same time that Sandy Hook happened, a disturbed person in China took a knife and tried to kill — with a knife — a bunch of children in China. Most of the reforms that are needed to prevent the type of violence and injustices that we’ve seen take place at the local level.

And that the fate of this democracy depends on how we use it; that democracy isn’t automatic, it has to be nurtured, it has to be tended to, we have to work at it, it’s hard. Former President Barack Obama delivered a scathing speech on the campaign trail on Wednesday, rebuking President Donald Trump.

But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed.

Read the full transcript here. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. There are some who might say we shouldn’t dwell on such things. We start feeling as if, in fact, that we can’t afford to extend kindness or decency to other people.

Jan. 20, 2009 -- Full transcript as prepared for delivery of President Barack Obama's inaugural remarks on Jan. 20, 2009, at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Part of what’s made me so hopeful is the fact that so many young people have been galvanized and activated and motivated and mobilized because historically so much of the progress that we’ve made in our society has been because of young people.

As an old man, he didn’t sit out any fight; he sat in, all night long, on the floor of the United States Capitol. President Bush, who spoke here earlier, and his father, both signed its renewal when they were in office. ), Thank you very much, everybody.

Barack Obama: (10:38) And then gunmen started firing. I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.

But he pushed all twenty of those years to the center of the table, betting everything, all of it, that his example could challenge centuries of convention, and generations of brutal violence, and countless daily indignities suffered by African Americans. It is mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police units, and that determines police practices in local communities. In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. Barack Obama: (10:12)

We’re also taking steps to make the background check system more efficient. Just as we don’t prevent all traffic accidents but we take steps to try to reduce traffic accidents.

The life of John Lewis was, in so many ways, exceptional. (Laughter and applause.) And let me begin by acknowledging that, although all of us have been feeling pain, uncertainty, disruption, some folks have been feeling it more than others. But if we love our kids and care about their prospects, and if we love this country and care about its future, then we can find the courage to vote. And that changed me that day. Suicides.

I was there with Gabby when she was still in the hospital, and we didn’t think necessarily at that point that she was going to survive.

(Applause.

The week before Christmas, he headed to a friend’s house to play video games. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Read Barack Obama's Speech on New Gun Control Measures.

), So all of us need to demand a Congress brave enough to stand up to the gun lobby’s lies. And so he knew it depends on whether we summon a measure, just a measure, of John’s moral courage to question what’s right and what’s wrong and call things as they are. The fact that recent surveys have showed that despite some protests having then been marked by the actions of some, a tiny minority that engaged in violence, as usual that got a lot of attention and a lot of focus, despite all that a majority of Americans still think those protests were justified. Today, background checks are required at gun stores.

We’re not asked to have shoulders that big; a heart that strong; reactions that quick. Former President Barack Obama made his 2020 campaign trail debut less than two weeks out from Election Day, stumping for his two-term vice president, Joe Biden, in Philadelphia with a speech … So I told him if his brother, Scott, is calling today, that he should take it. Turn the ringer on. By guaranteeing that every American citizen has equal representation in our government, including the American citizens who live in Washington, D.C. and in Puerto Rico. By signing up you are agreeing to our, Twitter Blocks Post From Trump Science Adviser That Falsely Claimed Masks Don’t Work, Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know now on politics, health and more, © 2020 TIME USA, LLC.

But he and Hosea Williams and others led them across that bridge anyway. After Connecticut passed a law requiring background checks and gun safety courses, gun deaths decreased by 40 percent — 40 percent. They had rights, too. And he thought he was going to die, surrounded by the sight of young Americans gagging, and bleeding, and trampled, victims in their own country of state-sponsored violence. Every single year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns — 30,000. Barack Obama: (12:31) It was a virtual town hall with a gathering of young activists who had been helping to lead this summer’s demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

You can imagine the conversations they had afterwards. Number one, anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks, or be subject to criminal prosecutions. Their memories are short. Those are included in the 21st-century policing task force report. (Applause.). Few knew what they were up to. Let me just close by saying this, I’ve heard some people say that you have a pandemic, then you have these protests. That’s not right.

Barack Obama: (09:54)

So it has been. Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for. Over 450 Barack Obama Speches in Text, Audio, Video - American Rhetoric Not when few elections have been as urgent, on so many levels, as this one.

Try Rev for free and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. The snow was stained with blood.

We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth.

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

THE PRESIDENT: Mark, I want to thank you for your introduction. Their bones were cracked by billy clubs, their eyes and lungs choked with tear gas. Their rights have not been infringed.

If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure that they can’t pull a trigger on a gun. And some gun retailers are already stepping up by refusing to finalize a purchase without a complete background check, or by refraining from selling semi-automatic weapons or high-capacity magazines.

Each time this comes up, we are fed the excuse that common-sense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, or the one before that, so why bother trying. Barack Obama: (14:36)

That report showcased a range of solutions and strategies that were proven and that were based on data and research to improve community policing and collect better data and reporting and identify and do something about implicit bias and how police were trained and reforms to use the force that police deploy in ways that increase safety rather than precipitate tragedy.

And that’s what John Lewis teaches us.

That is not as a consequences speeches by politicians.

I should add, by the way, that the original task force report was done several years ago, since that time we’ve actually collected data, in part because we implemented some of these reform ideas, so we now have more information and more data as to what works.

Barack Obama: (00:03)

We’ve got all those people in the city but we can’t do nothing.

Now, I know this is a celebration of John’s life. God bless you. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours.

And we have to be able to balance them. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide typically whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Barack Obama: (08:03)