Over the last few years a lot of people have become aware of the inequities in the criminal justice system, right now, with our overall crime rate and incarceration rate both falling, we're at a moment when some good people in both parties, Republicans and Democrats and folks all across the country, are coming up with ideas to make the system work smarter and better.
Barack ObamaWe honor those who walked so we could run. We must run so our children soar. And we will not grow weary.
Barack ObamaI refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that's beyond fixing.
Barack ObamaWe too often let the material things serve as indicators that we're doing well, even though something inside us tells us that were not doing our best. That we are avoiding that which is hard, but also necessary. That we are shrinking from rather than rising to the challenges of the age.
Barack ObamaThe amount of interaction, the amount of understanding that exists in your generation among people of different races and different creeds and different colors is unprecedented. And by the way, that goes - that cuts across party lines, that cuts across partisan lines.
Barack ObamaWe have a stake in one another...what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart.
Barack ObamaThat is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted.
Barack Obama