believe

Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. What led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. What led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.

Years from now, we'll look back on this day and we'll say that this was the moment when we finally gave Americans who have never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so.

This is the moment when America remembers what it means
to hope.

:text from obama's iowa victory speech; images nytimes, callie shell for time, flickr.