Who really said it

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for

Q: Did Barack Obama say "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for"?

Yes. Obama really did say this, in his election-night remarks in Chicago on 5 February 2008 — the transcript is archived at the American Presidency Project. Two caveats: the transcript reads "or if we wait for some other time," and the memorable half of the line — "we are the ones we've been waiting for" — is the poet June Jordan's, written in 1978.

Spoken by Barack Obama b. 1961 · then U.S. senator from Illinois, speaking on Super Tuesday night, 5 February 2008

Verified In copyright

Obama really did say this, in his election-night remarks in Chicago on 5 February 2008 — the transcript is archived at the American Presidency Project. Two caveats: the transcript reads “or if we wait for some other time,” and the memorable half of the line — “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” — is the poet June Jordan’s, written in 1978.

Last verified 15 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for” Barack Obama, Super Tuesday election-night remarks, Chicago, 5 February 2008: "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." The closing sentence is June Jordan's, from "Poem for South African Women" (1978). Via Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Barack Obama / Obama for America (2008 campaign speech); the borrowed closing line is © the June Jordan Literary Estate). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Barack Obama — 44th U.S. president · U.S. senator from Illinois, 2005–2008. Theme: "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Speech: Remarks following the “Super Tuesday” primaries and caucuses
Speaker: Barack Obama, then U.S. senator from Illinois and candidate for the Democratic nomination
Delivered: 5 February 2008 · Chicago, Illinois
Borrowed line: “we are the ones we have been waiting for” — June Jordan, “Poem for South African Women” (presented at the United Nations, 9 August 1978)

It will not be resolved on even a Super Duper Tuesday. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. (Cheers, applause.) We are the change that we seek. Election night, Chicago

As transcribed at the American Presidency Project. Note the transcript’s “or if we wait for some other time” — the version that circulates online drops the repeated clause and stops before “We are the change that we seek.”

The American Presidency Project — Remarks Following the “Super Tuesday” Primaries and Caucuses

How the line travelled

9 August 1978 — June Jordan presents “Poem for South African Women” at the United Nations, commemorating the 40,000 women and children who marched against the “dompass” on that date in 1956. Its closing line, set in italics: we are the ones we have been waiting for (Academy of American Poets ↗).
2006 — Alice Walker titles a book of essays We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For (The New Press) and names her source outright: “It was the poet June Jordan who wrote ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.’ Sweet Honey in the Rock turned those words into a song” (book excerpt ↗).
5 February 2008 — Obama closes his Super Tuesday remarks in Chicago with the passage, Jordan’s sentence at its centre (American Presidency Project transcript ↗).
Still unsettled — Jordan italicised the line like an epigraph, and both John Edwards and Jim Wallis credited it to the activist Lisa Sullivan, so whether Jordan coined it or quoted it remains open (Peter Levine ↗).

In copyright

The speech was delivered on 5 February 2008 by a sitting senator campaigning for office — not a work of the federal government, and far too recent for the public domain, so the text remains in copyright. The borrowed sentence carries its own separate claim: June Jordan’s poem is credited “Copyright © 2005, 2017 by the June Jordan Literary Estate” and reprinted by permission from Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan (Copper Canyon Press, 2005).

Fact-check

What gets credited to whom

This is an unusual case: Obama really did say the sentence, on the record, in a speech anyone can read. What’s wrong is narrower — the half of it that people actually remember was written by someone else, and the wording that circulates isn’t quite what he said.

Barack Obama Borrowed, not coined

Obama spoke it on Super Tuesday 2008 and the internet has credited him with it ever since. The sentence is the closing line of June Jordan’s Poem for South African Women, presented at the United Nations on 9 August 1978 (Academy of American Poets ↗). As Peter Levine puts it, Obama “didn’t coin it and never said he did” (peterlevine.ws ↗).

The popular short form Mis-worded

The transcript reads “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time,” and carries on into a third sentence, “We are the change that we seek.” The circulating version compresses the clause and cuts the ending (American Presidency Project ↗).

Hopi elders, Oraibi, Arizona No evidence

The line circulates widely as the climax of an ancient Hopi prophecy. Peter Levine searched for support and reported finding “no evidence that the Hopis were using it long ago” (peterlevine.ws ↗). The earliest documented appearance is still Jordan’s 1978 poem.

Alice Walker A title, not an origin

Walker’s 2006 New Press book made the phrase famous enough to be misread as hers — but she credits Jordan on the page: “It was the poet June Jordan who wrote ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for’” (excerpt ↗).

Obama said it — Chicago, 5 February 2008, and the transcript is public ↗. But the sentence that made it a slogan belongs to June Jordan ↗, and even she may have been quoting: she set the line in italics, like an epigraph, and researchers have never closed the question of where it came from first.

Context

Why it mattered

Super Tuesday 2008 did not settle the Democratic race, and Obama’s speech that night had to make an asset of the deadlock. The argument was that no single primary, and no single candidate, was going to do the work — and the line landed as a rebuke to the idea that a saviour was on the way. It is a strange thing for a candidate to say: stop waiting for me.

The sentence he reached for to say it was already thirty years old. June Jordan wrote “we are the ones we have been waiting for” for the women of South Africa, presenting the poem at the United Nations on 9 August 1978 — the twenty-second anniversary of the 1956 march against the pass laws. Alice Walker took it for a book title in 2006. By 2008 it had travelled far enough from its author that most people first heard it in a campaign speech.

It is a strange thing for a candidate to say: stop waiting for me.

The part nobody can settle

Jordan set the line in italics, as its own stanza — the way a writer treats an epigraph rather than a phrase of her own. That has led researchers to wonder whether she was quoting something older. Peter Levine notes that both John Edwards and the activist Jim Wallis credited the line to the late organiser Lisa Sullivan rather than to Jordan, which would push the chain back further still.

The other common origin story — that it is an ancient Hopi prophecy from Oraibi, Arizona — has no documented support. Levine looked and found “no evidence that the Hopis were using it long ago.” The earliest firmly documented appearance remains Jordan’s 1978 poem.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Change Leadership Purpose

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Remarks Following the “Super Tuesday” Primaries and Caucusespresidency.ucsb.edu

The archived transcript of Obama’s 5 February 2008 Chicago remarks — the primary source for the line, in full context.

June Jordan, “Poem for South African Women”poets.org

The full poem, its 1978 United Nations dedication, and the italicised closing line the speech borrowed.

Who first said “We are the ones we have been waiting for”?peterlevine.ws

The most careful public investigation of the phrase — weighs Jordan, Alice Walker, the Hopi claim and the Lisa Sullivan thread, and declines to settle it.

Excerpt: We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting Forfeminist.com

Alice Walker’s own text crediting June Jordan for the line and Sweet Honey in the Rock for the song.

Barack Obama — sourced quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Carries the line in its sourced 2008 section, cited to the Federal News Service transcript released by the New York Times.

June Jordan — poet biographypoets.org

Background on the poem’s author (1936–2002): activist, teacher, and founder of Poetry for the People at UC Berkeley.

The speaker

Barack Obama

b. 1961 · 44th U.S. president · U.S. senator from Illinois, 2005–2008

Barack Obama was a first-term U.S. senator from Illinois when he delivered these remarks on the night of Super Tuesday, 5 February 2008; he was elected the 44th president that November and served until 2017. The 2008 campaign’s signature cadences were often borrowed and remixed rather than coined — this line is a clear case, closing on a sentence the poet June Jordan had written thirty years earlier. Obama never claimed to have originated it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Barack Obama, “Remarks Following the ‘Super Tuesday’ Primaries and Caucuses,” Chicago, Illinois, February 5, 2008. The American Presidency Project. Closing line adapted from June Jordan, “Poem for South African Women” (presented at the United Nations, August 9, 1978), in Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2005).

MLA (9th ed.)

Obama, Barack. “Remarks Following the ‘Super Tuesday’ Primaries and Caucuses.” The American Presidency Project, 5 Feb. 2008.

APA (7th ed.)

Obama, B. (2008, February 5). Remarks following the “Super Tuesday” primaries and caucuses. The American Presidency Project.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for’?” Last verified 15 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/change-will-not-come-if-we-wait-for-some-other-person-or