Just Words, Mr. President?

In other words, I was betting on you. I was betting on you because — some of you know I now live in Chicago, but I didn’t originally grow up in Chicago.

I moved there after college because I wanted to work at a grassroots level and I got a job as an organizer with a group of churches who were trying to deal with the devastation of steel plants that had closed.

So for three years I worked setting up job training programs and trying to bring economic development to communities that had fallen on really hard times.

And it was the best education I ever had, because it taught me that ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they’re given the chance.

It taught me that change doesn’t happen from the top down; it happens from the bottom up.

Text of Senator Barack Obama Speech in Columbus, Ohio on February 27, 2008