President Obama praised a new film and a young singer Wednesday night, and tied both to the nation's ongoing journey over civil rights.
Speaking to donors in San Francisco, the first African-American president urged people to take their children to see 42, the story of how Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947.
Obama noted that he hosted a White House screening of the movie this week, and Robinson's widow Rachel attended.
"She's 90 years old and gorgeous," Obama said. "And in the theater at the White House, I thanked her. I thanked the people who made the film, just for reminding me in very visceral terms that in her lifetime, she saw her husband being the first African American to play in Major League Baseball, and now she's sitting there with me, in the White House."
It's been nearly 70 years since Robinson began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but Obama pointed out that "that's a blink of an eye in terms of human history ... It required a succession of people making tough choices, but the right choice. And then slowly things changed. A culture transformed itself."
Obama then spoke of Brandi Carlile, an alternative folk singer who had performed at another fundraiser earlier that night -- and who married her same-sex partner the same day Obama announced his support of gay marriage.
"She's a young woman, and I'm assuming she's thinking about all the people who were fighting the good fight not just in Stonewall, but well before that," Obama said, referring to a pivotal gay rights protest in New York City in 1969.
"And so generation after generation, we just plug away," Obama said. "And sometimes we make progress and sometimes it feels like we're not making progress. We just stay at it and stay at it. And then suddenly there's a breakthrough, and the entire culture shifts."