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Obama Video Clips > 2008-01-21 - King Day at The Dome
SEN.
OBAMA DELIVERS REMARKS AT A MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY EVENT, COLUMBIA, SOUTH
CAROLINA
JANUARY 21, 2008
SPEAKER: SEN. BARACK OBAMA, D-ILL.
[*] OBAMA: Thank you so much. I love you back. Thank you.
Giving all praise and honor to God for making this beautiful, if a little
chilly, day. I want to thank Dr. Lonnie Randolph for his outstanding leadership.
I want to thank Herbert Fielding, Jim Felder and I.S. Levy Johnson, the first
African-Americans elected to the legislature after Reconstruction.
I want to thank Councilwoman Tamika Isaac Devine, first American- American woman
elected to the Columbia City Council.
(APPLAUSE)
I want to thank Ernest Finney, first African-American chief justice of the
Supreme Court of South Carolina.
There are a lot of firsts in our presence, and I'm grateful to all of them.
I want to thank all the other dignitaries, and I want to acknowledge my
outstanding competitors, but partners in the Democratic Party, Hillary Rodham
and John Edwards, for their excellent leadership.
(APPLAUSE)
We come here today to celebrate a great man. And there are many lessons to take
from this day.
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
there was Memphis and the mountaintop, before the bridge in Selma and the march
on Washington, before Birmingham and the beatings, before 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 still doubted the possibilities of change and many still doubted
ourselves, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still
speaks to us today.
OBAMA: He said, "Unity is the great need of the hour." "Unity is the great need
of the hour."
And, South Carolina, unity is the great need of this hour, not because it sounds
nice 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.
Now, I'm not talking about the budget deficit. I'm not talking about the trade
deficit. I'm not talking about the deficit of good ideas or new plans. I'm
talking about the moral deficit in America.
(APPLAUSE)
I'm talking about an
empathy deficit that exists. I'm
talking about an inability to recognize ourselves in each other, to understand
that we are our brother's keeper, that 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 instead of corridors of
opportunity, not just in South Carolina but all across the United States of
America.
We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in 10 minutes than ordinary workers
are making in an entire year.
When families lose their homes so that lenders can make
a profit, when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick, when
we've got trade agreements that are very good for Wall Street, but not so good
for Main Street, we've got a deficit in this country.
OBAMA: We have a deficit in this country when there's Scooter Libby justice for
some and Jena justice for others, when our children are still seeing nooses
hanging from a schoolyard tree.
We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities and
young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that I believe should
have never been authorized and should have never been waged.
(APPLAUSE)
And we have a deficit when it takes a breach of our levees
to reveal the breach in our compassion, when it takes a terrible storm to reveal
the hungry that God calls on us to feed, the sick that he calls on us to care
for, the last of these that he commands us to treat as our own.
So, South Carolina, we've got a deficit to close. Not just
in this state, but in my home state of Illinois, all across America, we have
barriers of justice and equality that must come down.
And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of the hour. We can't do
this alone. We can't do it separately.
But here's the thing: true unity cannot be purchased on the cheap. It starts
with changing attitudes, by broadening our hearts and broadening our minds. And
that's not always easy. It's not always easy standing in somebody else's shoes.
It's not always easy to see past our differences.
And what makes it even more difficult is our politics sometimes drives us apart.
We're told that those who differ from us on some things are different from us in
all things, that+ our problems are the fault of those who don't look like us or
don't act like us or don't come from the same place as we do.
Every day, our politics fuels and exploits these kinds of divisions across races
and region, across gender and party. It's played out on television. It's
sensationalized by the media.
OBAMA: At times, it has crept into the presidential campaign in ways that serve
to obscure the issues, instead of illuminating the critical choices that we face
as a nation.
So let us say, on this day, of all days, each of us carries the task of changing
our hearts and minds. The divisions, the stereotypes, the scapegoating, the ease
with which we blame our plight on others -- all of this distracts from our
common challenges, the challenges that we face: war and poverty, injustice and
inequality.
We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing each other down. We can
no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate.
We don't need a politics of fear in this country. We need a politics of hope.
That's what Dr. King's message talks about.
(APPLAUSE)
Because, if Dr. King could love his jailer, if he could
call on Americans 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 that empathy
deficit in our heart.
And I know that Lonnie's starting to get up.
(LAUGHTER)
I know Lonnie's not using the same clock he was.
(LAUGHTER)
So let me just close -- let me just close by saying this, because folks are cold
and have been sitting outside for a long time.
You know, I talk a lot about hope in my campaign. And sometimes folks tease me.
They say, "Oh, he's always talking about hope; he's so idealistic; he's a
hope-monger...
(LAUGHTER)
... his head's in the clouds."
But I've got to tell you that I had to be hopeful to be standing here today.
(APPLAUSE)
I didn't come from a lot of money.
(APPLAUSE)
I didn't come from power or privilege.
(APPLAUSE)
I was raised by a single mother.
(APPLAUSE)
They gave me love. They gave me education. And they gave me a whole lot of hope.
And if you believe that we can change this country, I am convinced we can change
this country.
(APPLAUSE)
If you believe we can fix our schools, we'll fix our schools.
(APPLAUSE)
If you believe we can give health care to every single American, we can give it
to every single American.
If you will stand with me and march with me and vote for me, then I promise you
that the day of a benevolent community will finally come here in South Carolina,
and all across the United States of America.
God bless you all.
(APPLAUSE)
END
