Obama’s 1994 speech telling (plus full audio file)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10482809&u_rnd=7991228

Published Sunday November 9, 2008

Listen to the entire 1994 lecture by Barack Obama: http://library.nebrwesleyan.edu/Departments/Special_Collections/Misc_files/Barack_Obama_Sept1994.mp3

On Sept. 9, 1994, Nebraska Wesleyan University welcomed a 33-year-old Chicago lawyer, community organizer and civil rights advocate as a speaker.

Probably no one there, the speaker included, thought that one day he would be elected president of the United States.

Barack Obama lamented a “lost sense of community,” saying he suspected it affected the university’s home of Lincoln as it had the nation. We need to reject cynicism and mean-spiritedness, he said, and acquire long-term vision.

His speech, “Community Revitalization,” part of the University Forum series, apparently didn’t cause a ripple. Applause was merely polite. The school paper didn’t cover the speech. His words that day are remarkable not for any bombshell — he did say he often distrusted Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton when they talked about values — but for hints about the early thinking of a future president.

Obama talked about his own mistakes, about not connecting with people in Harlem, about having been troubled by leaving the South Side of Chicago and entering Harvard Law School.

He made the obligatory reference to the No. 1-ranked Husker football team, and he urged students to hang on to their dreams.
Elaine Kruse, chairman of Wesleyan’s history department and an Obama enthusiast, has no memory of the speech.

“His name is so distinctive,” she said, “that I’d think I would recall it.”

FULL story by subscription.

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. Thanks, A moment in history and time. Listening now n/t

[Berry Cool]

2. Cool.

This is like when Keith Olbermann's history teacher brought Obama in to speak to the students at Keith's alma mater back in '91. Prescient guy, he was.