Obama’s presidential nomination speech to auction

Barack Obama’s presidential nomination acceptance speech from the 2008 Democratic National Convention will be offered at Goldin Auctions.

The speech is called The American Promise, which is also the title of a famous speech given by Lyndon B Johnson on the subject of voting rights for African-Americans in March 1965.

Obama speech DNC

Obama took to the stage on the 45th anniversary of MLK's I Have a Dream speech

The date of Obama’s speech (August 28, 2008) is also significant.

It was 45 years to the day since Martin Luther King gave his stirring I Have a Dream speech to a vast crowd on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

In one memorable section, Obama says: “The [American] promise is our greatest inheritance.

"It’s a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours—a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot. And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream."

The speech is consigned by Robin Hayden, whose rigging company built the stage used during the convention.

He found the speech while dismantling the podium and offered it to secret service agents, who told him that he could keep it.

It’s now expected to sell for around $1 million.

That’s yet more evidence of the demand for material associated with Obama, whose presidency was a milestone in America’s long and turbulent racial history.

Earlier this year, two seats from his 2008 campaign bus realised $28,500 at RR Auction. 

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