(applause)

H-U!

Audience: You know!

The President: H-U!

Audience: You know!

The President: (laughs)

Thank you so much, everybody.

Please, please, have a seat.

Oh, I feel important now.

Got a degree from Howard.

Cicely Tyson said something nice about me.

(laughter)

Audience Member: I love you, President!

The President: I love you back.

To President Frederick, the Board of Trustees, faculty

and staff, fellow recipients of honorary degrees, thank

you for the honor of spending this day with you.

And congratulations to the Class of 2016!

(applause)

Four years ago, back when you were just freshmen, I

understand many of you came by my house the night

I was reelected.

(laughter)

So I decided to return the favor and come by yours.

To the parents, the grandparents, aunts, uncles,

brothers, sisters, all the family and friends who stood

by this class, cheered them on, helped them get here

today -- this is your day, as well.

Let's give them a big round of applause, as well.

(applause)

I'm not trying to stir up any rivalries here; I just

want to see who's in the house.

We got Quad?

(applause)

Annex.

(applause)

Drew.

Carver.

Slow.

Towers.

And Meridian.

(applause)

Rest in peace, Meridian.

(laughter)

Rest in peace.

I know you're all excited today.

You might be a little tired, as well.

Some of you were up all night making sure your

credits were in order.

(laughter)

Some of you stayed up too late, ended up at HoChi

at 2:00 a.m.

(laughter)

Got some mambo sauce on your fingers.

(laughter)

But you got here.

And you've all worked hard to reach this day.

You've shuttled between challenging classes

and Greek life.

You've led clubs, played an instrument or a sport.

You volunteered, you interned.

You held down one, two, maybe three jobs.

You've made lifelong friends and discovered exactly what

you're made of.

The "Howard Hustle" has strengthened your sense of

purpose and ambition.

Which means you're part of a long line

of Howard graduates.

Some are on this stage today.

Some are in the audience.

That spirit of achievement and special responsibility

has defined this campus ever since the Freedman's Bureau

established Howard just four years after the Emancipation

Proclamation; just two years after the Civil War came

to an end.

They created this university with a vision -- a vision of

uplift; a vision for an America where our fates

would be determined not by our race, gender, religion

or creed, but where we would be free -- in every sense --

to pursue our individual and collective dreams.

It is that spirit that's made Howard a centerpiece of

African-American intellectual life and a

central part of our larger American story.

This institution has been the home of many firsts: The

first black Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The first black Supreme Court justice.

But its mission has been to ensure those firsts

were not the last.

Countless scholars, professionals, artists, and

leaders from every field received their training here.

The generations of men and women who walked through

this yard helped reform our government, cure disease,

grow a black middle class, advance civil rights, shape

our culture.

The seeds of change -- for all Americans -- were sown here.

And that's what I want to talk about today.

As I was preparing these remarks, I realized that

when I was first elected President, most of you --

the Class of 2016 -- were just starting high school.

Today, you're graduating college.

I used to joke about being old.

Now I realize I'm old.

(laughter)

It's not a joke anymore.

(laughter)

But seeing all of you here gives me some perspective.

It makes me reflect on the changes that I've seen over

my own lifetime.

So let me begin with what may sound like a

controversial statement -- a hot take.

Given the current state of our political rhetoric and

debate, let me say something that may be controversial,

and that is this: America is a better place today than it

was when I graduated from college.

(applause)

Let me repeat: America is by almost every measure better

than it was when I graduated from college.

It also happens to be better off than when I took office --

(laughter)

-- but that's a longer story.

(applause)

That's a different discussion for another speech.

But think about it.

I graduated in 1983.

New York City, America's largest city, where I lived

at the time, had endured a decade marked by crime and

deterioration and near bankruptcy.

And many cities were in similar shape.

Our nation had gone through years of economic

stagnation, the stranglehold of foreign oil, a recession

where unemployment nearly scraped 11 percent.

The auto industry was getting its clock cleaned by

foreign competition.

And don't even get me started on the clothes and

the hairstyles.

I've tried to eliminate all photos of me

from this period.

I thought I looked good.

(laughter)

I was wrong.

Since that year -- since the year I graduated -- the

poverty rate is down.

Americans with college degrees, that rate is up.

Crime rates are down.

America's cities have undergone a renaissance.

There are more women in the workforce.

They're earning more money.

We've cut teen pregnancy in half.

We've slashed the African American dropout rate by

almost 60 percent, and all of you have a computer in

your pocket that gives you the world

at the touch of a button.

In 1983, I was part of fewer than 10 percent of African

Americans who graduated with a bachelor's degree.

Today, you're part of the more than 20 percent who will.

And more than half of blacks say we're better off than

our parents were at our age -- and that our kids will be

better off, too.

So America is better.

And the world is better, too.

A wall came down in Berlin.

An Iron Curtain was torn asunder.

The obscenity of apartheid came to an end.

A young generation in Belfast and London have

grown up without ever having to think about IRA bombings.

In just the past 16 years, we've come from a world

without marriage equality to one where it's a reality in

nearly two dozen countries.

Around the world, more people live in democracies.

We've lifted more than 1 billion people

from extreme poverty.

We've cut the child mortality rate worldwide by

more than half.

America is better.

The world is better.

And stay with me now -- race relations are better

since I graduated.

That's the truth.

No, my election did not create a post-racial society.

I don't know who was propagating that notion.

That was not mine.

But the election itself -- and the subsequent one --

because the first one, folks might have made a mistake.

(laughter)

The second one, they knew what they were getting.

The election itself was just one indicator of how

attitudes had changed.

In my inaugural address, I remarked that just 60 years

earlier, my father might not have been served in a

D.C. restaurant -- at least not certain of them.

There were no black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

Very few black judges.

Shoot, as Larry Wilmore pointed out last week, a lot

of folks didn't even think blacks had the tools

to be a quarterback.

Today, former Bull Michael Jordan isn't just the

greatest basketball player of all time -- he owns the team.

(laughter)

When I was graduating, the main black hero on TV

was Mr. T.

(laughter)

Rap and hip hop were counterculture, underground.

Now, Shonda Rhimes owns Thursday night, and Beyoncé

runs the world.

(laughter)

We're no longer only entertainers, we're

producers, studio executives.

No longer small business owners -- we're CEOs, we're

mayors, representatives, Presidents of the United States.

(applause)

I am not saying gaps do not persist.

Obviously, they do.

Racism persists.

Inequality persists.

Don't worry -- I'm going to get to that.

But I wanted to start, Class of 2016, by opening your

eyes to the moment that you are in.

If you had to choose one moment in history in which

you could be born, and you didn't know ahead of time

who you were going to be -- what nationality, what

gender, what race, whether you'd be rich or poor, gay

or straight, what faith you'd be born into -- you

wouldn't choose 100 years ago.

You wouldn't choose the fifties, or the sixties,

or the seventies.

You'd choose right now.

If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of

Lorraine Hansberry, "young, gifted, and black" in

America, you would choose right now.

(applause)

I tell you all this because it's important to note progress.

Because to deny how far we've come would do a

disservice to the cause of justice, to the legions of

foot soldiers; to not only the incredibly accomplished

individuals who have already been mentioned, but your

mothers and your dads, and grandparents and great

grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered and

overcame to make this day possible.

I tell you this not to lull you into complacency, but to

spur you into action -- because there's still so

much more work to do, so many more miles to travel.

And America needs you to gladly,

happily take up that work.

You all have some work to do.

So enjoy the party, because you're going to be busy.

(laughter)

Yes, our economy has recovered from crisis

stronger than almost any other in the world.

But there are folks of all races who are still hurting

-- who still can't find work that pays enough to keep the

lights on, who still can't save for retirement.

We've still got a big racial gap in economic opportunity.

The overall unemployment rate is 5 percent, but the

black unemployment rate is almost nine.

We've still got an achievement gap when black

boys and girls graduate high school and college at lower

rates than white boys and white girls.

Harriet Tubman may be going on the twenty, but we've

still got a gender gap when a black woman working

full-time still earns just 66 percent of what

a white man gets paid.