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Home • News

14 Powerful Quotes and Photos from President Obama's Selma Speech

It was 50 years ago that hundreds of civil rights activists were brutally beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., while peacefully marching for voting rights. Yesterday, President Obama returned to that historic landmark to commemorate how far we've come—and how far we still have to go. Here are some of the most powerful quotes from his speech.
By Taylor Lewis · Updated October 27, 2020
01
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“In one afternoon 50 years ago, so much of our turbulent history—the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war; the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow; the death of four little girls in Birmingham, and the dream of a Baptist preacher—met on this bridge.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
02
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“We gather here to honor the courage of ordinary Americans willing to endure billy clubs and the chastening rod; tear gas and the trampling hoof; men and women who despite the gush of blood and splintered bone would stay true to their North Star and keep marching toward justice.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
03
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“The Americans who crossed this bridge were not physically imposing. But they gave courage to millions. They held no elected office. But they led a nation.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
04
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“They proved that nonviolent change is possible; that love and hope can conquer hate.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
05
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“The American instinct that led these young men and women to pick up the torch and cross this bridge is the same instinct that moved patriots to choose revolution over tyranny. It’s the same instinct that drew immigrants from across oceans and the Rio Grande; the same instinct that led women to reach for the ballot and workers to organize against an unjust status quo; the same instinct that led us to plant a flag at Iwo Jima and on the surface of the Moon.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
06
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“Because of what they did, the doors of opportunity swung open not just for African-Americans, but for every American. Women marched through those doors. Latinos marched through those doors. Asian-Americans, gay Americans, and Americans with disabilities came through those doors.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
07
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“Selma teaches us, too, that action requires that we shed our cynicism.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
AP Photo/Butch Dill
08
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“To deny this progress—our progress—would be to rob us of our own agency.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
AP Photo/Bill Frakes
09
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“We just need to open our eyes, and ears, and hearts, to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us. We know the march is not yet over, the race is not yet won, and that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged by the content of our character – requires admitting as much.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
10
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“If we want to honor the courage of those who marched that day, then all of us are called to possess their moral imagination. All of us will need to feel, as they did, the fierce urgency of now.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
AP Photo/Bill Frakes
11
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“What is our excuse today for not voting? How do we so casually discard the right for which so many fought? How do we so fully give away our power, our voice, in shaping America’s future?”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
12
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. That’s why someone like John Lewis at the ripe age of 25 could lead a mighty march.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
Nicole Craine
13
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“Because the single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ We The People. We Shall Overcome. Yes We Can. It is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
14
Selma 50th Anniversary March

“We honor those who walked so we could run. We must run so our children soar. And we will not grow weary. For we believe in the power of an awesome God, and we believe in this country’s sacred promise.”

14 Powerful Quotes from President Obama's Selma Speech
AP Photo/Bill Frakes