page_title: Barack Obama 2008 presidential election victory speech
section_title: Significance
hierarchical_section_title: Barack Obama 2008 presidential election victory speech / Significance
caption_attribution_description: What's really interesting to me is the sea of still and video cameras. We're all press now.
context_page_description: Following his victory in the 2008 United States presidential election, then-President-elect Barack Obama gave his victory speech at Grant Park in his home city of Chicago, on November 4, 2008, before an estimated crowd of 240,000. Viewed on television and the Internet by millions of people around the globe, Obama's speech focused on the major issues facing the United States and the world, all echoed through his campaign slogan of change. He also mentioned his maternal grandmother Madelyn Dunham, who had died just two nights earlier.
context_section_description: In his speech, Obama reflected on the hard times of the campaign and the "challenges that America would face ahead." TV coverage of the speech showed Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey weeping in the crowd. Obama's speech also marked the first time a President-elect referred positively to gay Americans in an acceptance speech. Sam Perry experienced a brief moment of fame when Oprah Winfrey leaned on him while crying on his shoulder.
  Grant Park was the location of many protests of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which were significant for ending in violence, riots and police brutality. CNN declared, "History gave Grant Park another chance Tuesday as the scene of a peaceful and jubilant celebration of Barack Obama's presidential victory." Obama's speech has been praised as having "... the rare ability to cultivate the things that are common to all human beings, regardless of artificial and arbitrary distinctions."
caption: Supporters cheering as Obama delivers his speech in Grant Park
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