View the video above for the latest info regarding the speeches and happenings at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is giving his acceptance speech at the convention Thursday night.
Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was the first black woman to gain popularity and critical acclaim as a major science fiction writer.
Born in Pasadena, California, Butler was the only living child her mother, Octavia M. Butler, was able to carry to term out of five pregnancies. Her father, Laurice, a shoe shiner, died when she was just a baby and her mother and grandmother raised her in a racially mixed neighborhood where her mother worked to support the family as a maid.
Butler was very shy in school, a daydreamer, and that made school very difficult for her—as did her dyslexia, which she later overcame. Nicknamed Junie, Butler began writing at 10 to escape boredom and loneliness. A couple of years later, she had become interested in science fiction. She told the Black Scholar, “I was writing my own little stories and when I was 12, I was watching a bad science fiction movie called Devil Girl from Mars and decided that I could write a better story than that. And I turned off the TV and proceeded to try, and I’ve been writing science fiction ever since.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton, a self-proclaimed “proud supporter of Barack Obama”, called on the Democratic Party to rally behind the Democratic presidential candidate, adding that “it is time to take back the country we love and whether you voted for me or you voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose.”
Clinton was met with a standing ovation from an enthusiastic audience in the last speech of the night, as she thanked voters for supporting her campaign and reached out to those still wary of Obama. To sum it up, Clinton declared, “No way. No how. No McCain. Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our president.”
Meet Michelle Obama, whose rousing headlining speech kicked off the Democratic National Convention Monday night.
Her mom said she’d be watching nervously as Michelle delivered her big speech, but predicted her daughter wouldn’t be because “she’s very confident, and I think that comes from being sure of who you are.”
In case you missed it, check out Michelle Obama as the first headline act of the Democratic National Convention.
In a soul-stirring speech in honor of her father’s memory and her daughters’ future, Mrs. Obama said her husband, Sen. Barack Obama, will make an “extraordinary president” and added that “[her children's future] and all our children’s future is [her] stake in this election”.
She also mentioned that she and her husband were raised with the same values like “you work hard for what you want in life, that you word is your bond, that you do what you say you’re gonna do, that you treat people with dignity and respect even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.”
After much speculation on who it might be, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has chosen Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate.
A text message, sent around 3 a.m. Saturday announced, “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee“.
In an introductory post on his official website, Obama’s campaign said:
Joe Biden brings extensive foreign policy experience, an impressive record of collaborating across party lines and a direct approach to getting the job done.
We have our team, but we also have our work cut out for us.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the leaders who will bring the change our country needs. But they can’t do it alone.
Dr. Shirley A. Jackson (1946-) is a physicist and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the nation’s oldest technological university.
Born to Beatrice and George Jackson in Washington, D.C., Jackson developed a passion for science at the age of 8, spurred by her father’s assistance with projects for her science classes. She joined the accelerated programs for math and science and graduated valedictorian from segregated Roosevelt High School in 1964. Later that year, she became one of the first black students to be accepted at MIT and the only one studying theoretical physics.
