It's funny, I can remember sitting in my tiny, second-floor office at the BRI in late 2003 reading about this guy in Illinois, this hyper-eloquent state senator—a black man living in Chicago—who was winning over largely-white crowds in rural southern Illinois during his race for Illinois' U.S. Senate seat. I remember thinking this is a guy to keep an eye on. Not long after that, in the fall of 2004, someone in the Democratic party had the good sense to give him the keynote speech slot, and Barack Obama was introduced to a national audience.
I think it's worth reviewing the video of that speech today:
It's remarkable how thematically consistent he has been throughout his career. (That bit about about there being no red and blue America—starting around 13:30 or so—gets me every fucking time.)
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