Barack Obama leads ILL chant, speaks at University of Illinois

Former President Barack Obama spoke at Foellinger Hall on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Friday. Obama received the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government from the UI System’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs.

There were about 1,000 tickets available to students, which were distributed based on a random lottery between the three UI campuses.

The speech was also live-streamed on the UI website, which Obama shared via Twitter earlier in the morning.

U of I System President Tim Killeen opened up the speech before UIUC student Amaury Saulsberry introduced the 44th President.

Obama opened up his speech with an ILL chant and response three times and mentions of corn, soybeans and the now-closed Antonio’s pizza.

And then he went more into his message of voting leading into the midterms and 2020 Election.

“As a citizen, I am here to deliver a simple message and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it.”