Years ago, as a farm boy sitting outdoors with my family on the ground in the middle of the night, gathered close around a battery radio connected to the automobile battery and listening to the Democratic conventions in far-off cities, I was a long way from the selection process. I feel much closer to it tonight.
Ours is the party of the man who was nominated by those distant conventions and who inspired and restored this nation in its darkest hours—Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Ours is the party of a fighting Democrat who showed us that a common man could be an uncommon leader—Harry S. Truman.
Ours is the party of a brave young President who called the young at heart, regardless of age, to seek a "New Frontier" of national greatness—John F. Kennedy.
And ours is also the party of a great-hearted Texan who took office in a tragic hour and who went on to do more than any other President in this century to advance the cause of human rights—Lyndon Johnson.
Our Party was built out of the sweatshops of the old Lower East Side, the dark mills of New Hampshire, the blazing hearths of Illinois, the coal mines of Pennsylvania, the hard-scrabble farms of the southern coastal plains, and the unlimited frontiers of America.
Ours is the party that welcomed generations of immigrants—the Jews, the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, and all the others, enlisted them in its ranks and fought the political battles that helped bring them into the American mainstream. And they have shaped the character of our party.
That is our heritage. Our party has not been perfect. We have made mistakes, and we have paid for them. But ours is a tradition of leadership and compassion and progress.
Our leaders have fought for every piece of progressive legislation, from RFD and REA to Social Security and civil rights. In times of need, the Democrats were there.
Jimmy Carter Acceptance speech 1976 (excerpt)
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/our-nations-past-and-future-address-accepting-the-presidential-nomination-the-democratic
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