I can hold my head high knowing that my countrymen of all colors, genders, faiths, and from all walks of life can make a dream real.
I can look back over years of struggle and say that each step was a walk towards this point.
I can go to sleep tonight thinking of my mother, who could have been Michelle Obama. I think of my father - child of a white mother from Kansas and a black man from Tennessee. I think of my great grandmother, a slave from Virgina, and her brother who ran off from the plantation where he was held in bondage to fight for the Union, and win his family freedom. I think of my other great grandfather, who joined up to fight for the Union from Wisconsin, for a cause that he knew little about - but was willing to die for.
I think of my grandfather, who graduated from college and worked his whole life as a sleeping car porter. The faces of my ancestors are there in front of me as I lay me down to sleep tonight.
My memories shift to the faces of all the young people who sat-in, freedom rode-in, some who made it back from those trips down South, and some who died, to get us to this point today. Of my fellow anti-war protesters, of my sister feminists, of my comrades in movements across the US who saw themselves as part of a rainbow.
Sweet dreams Kossacks, tomorrow we will all go out to do this - together.
For all those people upon whose shoulders we stand.
Thank you.