President Barack Obama on Tuesday invoked a time-tested message on the virtues of productive social activism and idealism to a group of mostly Black college students. Obama, who has fewer than 100 days left in the White House, paraphrased Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s visionary presidential campaign theme from 1968:
“Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.”
With that semi-pep talk, the president drove home the point that, although he soon will leave the Oval Office, he expects young folk and the generations to come to make a positive difference in our society. Once a youthful and idealistic community organizer himself, a reflective Obama told the students: “It’s young people who drive change and progress.”
Obama was speaking during a special town hall meeting titled “A Conversation With the President: Sports, Race and Achievement” on the campus of North Carolina A&T State University. The meeting focused largely on national issues facing Black communities as well as historically Black colleges and universities, of which N.C. A&T is a member. The forum was sponsored by The Undefeated, a micro-site sponsored by ESPN that launched on May 17, 2016, with a mission statement to focus on the intersection of sports, race and culture.
