Reply #19: If you read the speech intelligently, you see he was referring to the civil rights movement

[zulchzulu]

Here is a portion of the text of the actual speech:

This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama.

I’m here because somebody marched. I’m here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants. I thank the Moses generation; but we've got to remember, now, that Joshua still had a job to do. As great as Moses was, despite all that he did, leading a people out of bondage, he didn't cross over the river to see the Promised Land. God told him your job is done. You'll see it. You'll be at the mountain top and you can see what I’ve promised. What I’ve promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. You will see that I’ve fulfilled that promise but you won't go there.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/03/obamas_selma_speech_text_as_de.html

If you read the speech in its entirety, you see what he's talking about.

Consider that Rosa Parks didn't go to the back of the bus in 1955.

Consider the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Consider the Freedom Rides in 1961.

The Civil Rights movement didn't magically happen in 1965 in Selma. What happened in Selma in 1965 was part of a culmination of the movement.

We could pick apart Obama's speech that he mentioned Moses, who in fact was around way, way before Obama was born.