I did my analysis on the first two minuets of this speech.

This speech is argued by some to be the speech that made Barack Obama president. It was highly moving, allowed the people to connect to what he was saying, and full of energy. When making the speech, he uses hand gestures to make his points have more emphasis. He gestures with his hands early and often throughout the speech and there is something that is just captivating about watching the man speak. It is almost as much a treat to the eyes as it is to the ears. This speech is very persuasive, through mentioning his father who lived in poor conditions as a child he draws sympathy although he doesn’t ask for it, it come naturally, and that is designed to happen. He paints his family as great American patriots, his grandfather fighting in WWII and his grand mother, finding a way to help the war effort on the home front by assembling bomber planes and raising his mother at the same time. Before the war, his grandfather had worked on a farm as a day laborer, or in the oil fields during the Great Depression. This is showing that his family has first hand experience with hardship, that they are hard working Americans, just like everyone else. Throughout the speech, he makes Americans feel as if they had something to prove. He says he got his name from an African word meaning blessed. He does not apologize in any way for his name, but rather wears it as a badge of honor. This promotes his idea of wanting to make American people feel more accepting by saying that his father had said in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success. He says this in a way that it manages to encapsulate race as well, since his name is a historically black name. My overall assessment of his speech is that it is excellent, it is after all a speech that made a man the president. he was able to garner sympathy, but remain strong, he was able to embrace his African culture in a way that did not alienate white people, he made America want to be the tolerant America that his father had described to him, where your name, and thusly your race is not a limit on what you can achieve. And he proved it, he became the first man of color to become the President of the United States.