Background information

The COVID-19 pandemic

Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in August 2020 comes during a global pandemic. In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Almost 2 million people have lost their lives because of the pandemic, and many countries still struggle with the virus. Consequently, Obama’s speech is delivered remotely instead of live, at the convention location. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the US, the Democratic National Convention was downsized, and Michelle Obama delivered the speech from her own home. 

Obama mentions the pandemic several times during her speech, as well as Donald Trump’s initial response to it. Trump has often been accused of downplaying the virus, something that Obama also reminds the audience in her speech (ll. 34-35).

The “Black Lives Matter” movement

Michelle Obama delivers her speech in the context of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which followed the deaths of several innocent black people. The tension reached a high point in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who was killed by a white police officer. Before that, Breonna Taylor, a young African-American woman, was fatally shot in her apartment when police officers broke in looking for drugs. These events have become the central points of the “Black Lives Matter” movement and protests and are mentioned in Michelle Obama’s speech (ll. 41-43). 

 ...