Posted below is the text of an absolutely amazing speech by Barack Obama, delivered this morning in Atlanta. As soon as video is available, I'll add it. For now, I'll just say that THIS is the inspiration that we've all been hoping to find in our leaders since Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated. THIS is the eloquence we need. THIS is the vision. And, most importantly, THIS is the man who should be the next President of the United States. Wow.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
The Great Need of the Hour
Ebenezer Baptist Church
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
Atlanta, GeorgiaEMBARGOED for Delivery
The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.
But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.
Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yolk of oppression.
And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:
"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.
The rest of the speech is on the "flip."
What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.Unity is the great need of the hour - the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.
I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.
I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.
We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame - schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.
We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.
We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.
We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.
And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.
So we have a deficit to close. We have walls - barriers to justice and equality - that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.
Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily - that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.
All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.
But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes - a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.
It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart - that puts up walls between us.
We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.
For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.
So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others - all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face - war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.
Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.
But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.
The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.
And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.
That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words - words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.
He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.
That is the unity - the hard-earned unity - that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope - the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.
The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight. They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.
And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.
And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.
And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope - but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone
In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.
So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.
"I, Barack Obama, do solemnly swear..."
What a great day for America and the world that will be!
Some accuse us of being a part of a 'cult' for our support of Obama. He talks about things I believe in and that are core Democratic principles.
Ex-Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., will endorse Sen. Barack Obama, the Post-Dispatch has learned.Carnahan's endorsement will be officially rolled out Monday. It's another win for the Obama campaign in courting the state's top political women, who could play a pivotal role persuading female voters to line up behind the Illinois senator and presidential hopeful.
"While I know and admire all the Democrats running for president, I am convinced that Barack Obama is the candidate best able to unite our nation and restore our moral leadership in the world," Carnahan said in a statement to be released today.
Nice.
An influential Houston minister who has long been a spiritual adviser to President George W. Bush says he will endorse Barack Obama's bid for the presidency.The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church, said Saturday that he's backing the Illinois senator because of Obama's "character, confidence and courage."
Obama, a Democrat, is electable and "would do a wonderful job to bring people together to pursue a common vision we all have," said Caldwell, who said his support is personal and not connected to his role as pastor of the 14,000-member church.
However, Caldwell told his congregation that Obama may pay a visit to his church.
I saw her out sweeping snow away from her parking space in our condo area the other day. We were talking about some actions we wanted to take to get condo association to fix some things. Out of nowhere she asked if I was going to do a canvassing this year. Then she said she was supporting Obama and she didn't like Hillary. She said she had tried to find a local Obama organization so she could canvas for him, but there were none around Fairfax City at this time. I was totally surprised. I think this shows that Obama has the ability to reach former Republican voters and to mobolize them, just by being himself.
Mr. Obama, of Illinois, and Mrs. Clinton, of New York, have increasingly been viewing the coming contests as a long-running battle for delegates. No longer do Democrats see much chance of either candidate stringing together a few quick victories and consolidating the support of the party. The possibility of building steam that carries from one contest to the next seems much in question.
Kennedy in berlin
King at the lincoln memorial( I was there!)
Even reagon had a few zinging speeches
Now the 21th century has its first American speech wizard.
and there was George Bushes smirking face
I believe the response is along the lines of: "Holy sh..."
I am sick to DEATH of seeing people - individuals who I would have otherwise said I found intelligent, well-read, and thoughtful - knocking Barack Obama for being all hope without substance behind the oratory. Have you finally sunk so low in your blind advocacy of not-Obama that you can't simply go out and read and recognize that Obama HAS positions on the issues, positions which you can actually read?? Shame on all of you for picking up a Rovian smear and propagating it into this forum.So I'm going to give you a summary of Obama's POSITIONS vis-a-vis Edwards' POSITIONS so that you can no longer say that you weren't made aware that each actually HAVE THEM. I'm sorry to leave out Senator Clinton, but this is addressed primarily to the Edwards supporters, since they are so quick to spout the "hope isn't a policy!!" smear.
You go grrrrrl!!! :)
This helps me to understand a lot more about Edwards and Obama. There are several areas in which we disagree, but it confirms my feeling that either one of these men would match most closely my own positions on most things, except, perhaps, abortion.
I haven't made any secret of my problem with abortion. I have a hard time with it because I think the science is irrefutable as to what is actually happening when an abortion is performed, especially several weeks into a pregnancy. It seems to me that many people like to hold their hands over their ears and close their eyes and pretend that it's just about choice, when clearly it is not. My readings on fetal development; heck, my own memories of what it was like to carry three babies to term, to feel their little fluttery movements within a few weeks of becoming pregnant, tell me this isn't a simple issue of anti-women's choicer pro-lifers and pro-choice anti-human lifers. My experiences with desperate young mothers being pressured by their boyfriends/husbands and oftentimes social workers into agreeing to an abortion tells me it's not just about "trusting women to make the choice." There are competing interests there, so I have problems with the absolutists on the pro-choice side. However, I also have problems with the absolutists on the pro-life side. Many times I've discussed the issue with people who describe themselves as fervently pro-life, but who oppose any effort to offer alternatives to desperate women and girls who may be contemplating abortion. It's no use trying to ban something that's been around as long as humans have been having babies. Instead, the impetus should be toward expanding choice in preventing unwanted pregnancies - which research tells us happens through education and access to birth control services - and in providing options for women/girls who find themselves facing a pregnancy which everyone around them is urging them to terminate. Thus, I find myself agreeing with both Edwards and Obama about expanding options for pregnant women. The fact is that many women/girls terminate their pregnancies because they think they can't afford their children. I've represented women who've done this, and it upsets them. No one should feel pressured into terminating a pregnancy.
I find myself agreeing with Obama about the death penalty and disagreeing with him about the Patriot Act. But is clear that his positions have been spelled out far better than he is given credit for by the MSM, so it's important to get the information out there.
Back when I was younger, more precisely when I was an active and believing Catholic, I was fairly staunchly pro-life, although I think I was always uncomfortable with the idea of the government telling people what they legally could or could not do with their own bodies. I always have had strong civil libertarian leanings, even when I was religious (the two are definitely not mutually exclusive), but those beliefs have become even more pronounced as I have become more of an atheist/agnostic -- and as my study of and education about the Constitution and the ideas that this country were founded on have grown.
At the end of the day, we need a way in this country for the believer and the non-believer to feel equally American, equally validated and protected by our Constitution. Having been both a believer and a non-believer (at least in terms of organized religion), I think there's only one way to do so -- and that's to be faithful to those documents that gave us this country. The best treatise I have read on the Constitution ("A New Birth of Freedom", by Charles Black) makes this possible by including the Declaration of Independence in our Constitutional law, and by making explicit that the 9th and 14th Amendments to our Constitution explicitly incorporate the following idea into our law: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their Just powers from the Consent of the governed."
I think if we used Jefferson's formulation as the guide to our principles of what is allowable in our civic lives, we would live in a much better country. And I think if you decide to try and live by such a code, you have to believe that women have the right to define their own liberty and their own pursuit of happiness, which means no government may rightfully tell them what they may or may not do with their own bodies. For me, Catzmaw, your argument carries significant weight -- we should not seek to trivialize or sweep away what we're talking about in terms of what abortion really entails. But a life that may be, in my mind, cannot trump the rights of the life that already is. Having said that, once the potential life nears viability, the weights on the scale of justice must necessarily rebalance -- I don't believe we can callously allow for an unfettered right to abort a life once it becomes viable or near viable on its own accord.
Some women will make choices that other men and women won't agree with. And let's put it out there -- some babies will be aborted long after it is probably responsible to do so. But in a multicultural, multireligious society, I don't see how it is prudent or even effective to attempt to enforce one worldview on such a controversial and personal subject. At the end of the day, we all live our lives as we see fit, and we will be judged or not by forces we cannot control when this life is over.
To those that fervently believe that it is strictly immoral to allow any types of abortions, and that they must strive to end such practices, I can only say that the right to have liberty and to pursue happiness also protects their right to live how they wish, their right to raise their children as they wish, and their right to try and work to reduce the need for abortions. But no one is guaranteed happiness or guaranteed to not be offended in such a society -- we are guaranteed only the right to pursue happiness, and, frankly, the right to BE offended (the corollary to the right of free speech for all).
Anyway, I hope this response isn't too long, or untoward, or off point. But I found your comments so heartfelt, they deserved some kind of response.
Like you I don't find much of my personal philosophy to be in conflict with the fundamental Catholic philosophy upon which I cut my teeth. I understand Mother Church's need to establish a moral absolute, and on some level am actually able to agree with it and understand its underpinnings, while at the same time asserting the need for this country to seek solutions which allow for competing interests. The reasoning behind Catholic philosophy is a thing of beauty, a lovely exercise in logical analysis. But while understanding a moral absolute which says thou shall not kill (or murder), we know that no country adheres to this standard. We have all on some level made a compromise with the moral absolute. We all know there are circumstances under which a life may be taken, and that in fact some lives are deemed more valuable than others. I can understand the Catholic thought which says that sexual activity has as its ultimate purpose procreation, which is the underpinning of the philosophical opposition to gay unions, but we all know that marriage between those who cannot have children is honored and regarded as a good marriage, even by the Catholic Church, as long as it's between a man and a woman. Well if the philosophical underpinning can be ignored for a childless man and woman, why can they not be ignored if the union is between two people of the same sex? Mother Church cannot answer that question, and so I say that there is no civil basis upon which we should prohibit gay marriage. A religious group may have its exceptions, and that is their right, but if we view it through the Jeffersonian lens of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," then what overriding state purpose exists which justifies continuing discrimination against gay couples?
So, in my long-winded way I am saying you have stated things very well and provided some insight into what motivates my political positions. I will give the Church credit where credit is due. Much of what I believe about social justice is lifted whole from my readings in Catholic philosophy, but it also is derived from my readings in American history and Constitutional law. When we seek to prohibit certain activities we should have always before us the question of what societal purpose is served by the prohibition, and we should question further what impingement upon our liberty is being contemplated in order to achieve the societal purpose. Weighed that way, there are a lot of prohibitions in this society which would fall along the wayside.
Regardless, would that we could all "disagree" in such a manner -- agreeing upon a political philosophy, and then coming to different decisions based upon our own life experiences. I don't think I disagree with one clause in your response, even though we started at different sides of the street on this topic.
I always enjoy your posts and comments. Thanks for sharing.
We live in times that require great leadership, made even more difficult by the absolute lack of leadership and the incompetence of the Bush administration.
It is my fervent hope that my country can overcome its innate - sometimes even unconscious - racism and elect this fine man.
I respect Hillary Clinton, as well. However, she does not have the spark of oratory that Obama has...and that we need so much.
In order for Hillary Clinton to be elected, this nation will have to overcome its innate - and something unconscious - sexism.
Boy, am I proud of being a Democrat this year! The other party presents the same old tired faces spouting the same old tired mantra...."no taxes....no regulation...give me my gun...get ready for another war...."
My party is challenging us to grow as a nation, to be better than we think we can be.
The last time I felt this good about politics was when I watched Douglas Wilder being sworn in as governor of Virginia. (This from a lady who had two great-great-grandfathers killed on the Confederate side of the Civil War.)