Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: The Great Need of the Hour
King Day at Ebenezer Baptist Church
Atlanta, GA | January 20, 2008
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 yoke 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.
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.
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