I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, black young women — head off to school, waving goodbye to their father, the President of the United States.
Michelle Obama
City College of New York Commencement 2016, 2016
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This was the emotional climax of the speech — and one of the most famous lines Michelle Obama ever spoke. She had been weaving a narrative about the American Dream as embodied by City College alumni: Jonas Salk, the son of Polish immigrants who discovered the polio vaccine; Colin Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants who became Secretary of State. Then she brought it home — literally. The image of a Black family living in the White House, built by enslaved people, compressed centuries of American history into a single morning routine. The juxtaposition was devastating: the house's origins and its current occupants, the distance between those two realities and the fact that both were equally, undeniably American. 'So, graduates, while I think it's fair to say that our Founding Fathers never could have imagined this day, all of you are very much the fruits of their vision.'
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