Michelle Obama returned to her hometown of Chicago on Tuesday night to deliver a rousing and forceful endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris during the second night of the Democratic National Convention.
Throughout the speech, the former first lady didn’t mince words when she spoke about Donald Trump and the threat she feels he poses to the country and democracy.
And, in perhaps her most frank and public comments to date, Obama spoke about the racism she and former President Barack Obama experienced during their eight years in the White House – attacks that were often perpetuated by Trump, who spent years pushing of the “birtherism” conspiracy theory about the birthplace and presidential eligibility of the first Black president.
“For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us,” she said. “His limited narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people – who happen to be Black.”
“Wait, I want to know – who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?” she said.
The allusion to a widely criticized remark Trump made in June during CNN’s presidential debate earned loud cheers from the thousands of delegates at the convention.
Michelle Obama later accused Trump of using the “same old con, doubling down on ugly misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better.”
Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator Keith Boykin said the audience could feel Obama’s passion – and at times frustration – as she delivered the speech at the United Center.
“I took it as a reflection of the fact that Donald Trump has been consistently attacking Black people and Black women,” Boykin said, pointing to Trump’s false claim at the National Association of Black Journalist’s conference last month that Harris only recently “happened to turn Black.”
“The implication was clear that he traffics in racism and division and we’re tired of that. It’s like he’s like a schoolyard bully who never grew up, and she’s America’s mom who’s telling this kid, ‘Look, this act is over and played out.’”
During the speech, Obama spoke about her own mother, Marian Robinson, who died in May, and drew parallels between the lessons both she and Harris learned from their mothers’ example.
Both of their mothers, Obama said, “shared the same belief in the promise of this country.”
“I wasn’t even sure if I would be steady enough to stand before you tonight. But my heart compelled me to be here because of the sense of duty that I feel to honor her memory. And to remind us all not to squander the sacrifices our elders made to give us a better future,” she said.
And without directly mentioning Trump’s name, Obama drew pointed comparisons between Harris and the 45th president.
“She understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth,” Obama said. “If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top.”
As reactions to Obama’s speech poured in on social media, many noted that the former first lady appeared to have pivoted away from the soaring rhetoric she used when she coined the slogan “When they go low, we go high” during the 2016 DNC.
Instead, eight years later, Obama issued a challenge to those Americans experiencing “grief” and anxiety around the 2024 presidential campaign: “Do something.”
Latonya Reeves, a Minnesota delegate, told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins she was moved by Obama’s speech and cheered so loudly, she lost her voice.
“Our ancestors fought for us to be here. We don’t have the opportunity to sit on the sidelines and not vote,” she said.