But what we know - what we have seen - is that America can change. We all put our country first. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one." For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

And I found that I recognized in these folks a part of myself. I learned that everyone's got a sacred story when you take the time to listen. And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.