Favreau and Obama decided to use a special story about a woman named Ann Nixon Cooper:
She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make
their voice heard in this election except for one thing – Ann Nixon
Cooper is 106 years old.
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were
no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t
vote for two reasons – because she was a woman and because of the
colour of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century
in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress;
the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on
with that American creed: Yes, we can.
Favreau decided to give Ann Nixon Cooper a call before using her
story in the speech: “I told her that man who was about to become
President wanted to name her in his victory speech. She paused for a
while and asked: ‘Will it be on television?’ I said ‘yes’. She waited a
little longer. ‘Which channel will it be on?’, she asked, so I told her.
That was when she said ‘I’m so proud of him, I’m so proud of us’. She
started crying and so did I and at exactly that moment the results from
Ohio came in. That was when I realised that it would always be difficult
to bring about change but that it can happen if we believe.”
Extract from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/obamas-speechwriter-shares-5-storytelling-tips-trevor-ambrose?trk=hp-feed-article-title-like
