In a speech given before thousands in Chicago, and millions around the
world, Barack Obama accepted his victory and place in history as the
forty-fourth president-elect of the United States. As Obama spoke,
election night dwindled into the day after, and the Illinois senator
made sure to center his speech around the work of those who paved the
way for the change they sought, those who canvassed and stood in
impossibly long lines to vote, and most especially those who years
before marched for civil rights and social justice so that all Americans
could one day “put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once
more toward the hope of a better day.” To read the full transcript of
the speech click
here.

–Marissa Colón-Margolies

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