Let me thank the South Carolina NAACP for inviting me to be here with you today.
It is an honor to speak before your chapter which has been a leading moral voice in this state throughout its history, and whose members have shown unbelievable courage during some of the most painful days in American history.
At a time when racism and segregation were deeply ingrained in both the law and mores of our society, the South Carolina NAACP helped lead the fight to desegregate our nation’s schools and end the system of “whites only” primaries. And today you continue the work in fighting racism and bigotry in all its ugly forms. You are truly American heroes and heroines and I thank you for all that you have done.
Let me especially acknowledge Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, the longest serving African-American in the history of the South Carolina House. I hope you continue making history for many years to come.
Further, let me thank South Carolina NAACP Conference of Branches President Brenda Murphy for the great work she does.
I also want to acknowledge my longtime friends Justin Bamberg, Wendell Gilliard and Terry Alexander who do a great job in the Legislature.
We are here today to honor and remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the great leaders in the history of our country, a man of extraordinary brilliance and courage – who time and time again put his life on the line in the struggle for racial, economic and social justice.
But, today, in the strange and unprecedented political moment in which we live, we must do more than just “honor and remember” Dr. King. We must be faithful to his revolutionary spirit, his call for a “radical revolution of values” and for his incredible courage in taking on virtually the entire political and economic establishment of his time.
All of us know that because of Dr. King’s remarkable leadership the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, two of the most important pieces of legislation in American history, were signed into law.
If Dr. King had accomplished nothing more than help pass these two vitally important pieces of legislation, he would have become a major historical figure.
But Dr. King did so much more. He taught us that the “inseparable twin of racial injustice is economic injustice.” He taught us that we had to fight against three major evils – “the evil of racism, the evil of poverty and the evil of war.”
And, by the incredible courage he displayed in 1967, by opposing the war in Vietnam and parting ways with the political leadership of the country, by the leadership he showed at the end of his life when he was organizing a Poor People’s March made up of low income blacks, and whites, and Latinos and Native Americans, he made the profound point that real and fundamental change never comes from the top on down. It’s never given to anybody. It always comes from the bottom on up, from grassroots activism, from millions of people standing up and fighting for justice.
And that vision of Dr. King — that vision of ending the triple evils of racism, economic injustice and war — is as important today as it was when Dr. King fought for those principles, and must motivate us in all of our work.
In terms of racism, and it gives me no pleasure to say this, we today have a president who is a racist. As all of you remember Donald Trump, before he was president, was one of the leaders of the so-called “birther movement,” which sought to portray Barack Obama as an illegitimate president, someone not born in the United States. This was, of course, a total and dangerous lie.
And over the last two years as president, Trump has done what no other president in modern history has done. And that is, instead of bring us together as Americans, he has purposely and aggressively attempted to divide us up by the color of our skin, by our gender, by our nationality, by our religion and by our sexual orientation.
Today we have a message for Donald Trump. In a nation that has struggled with bigotry and discrimination from its inception: from the arrival of settlers in Jamestown 400 years ago and their terrible acts against the native American people, to the abomination of slavery and racism, to the widespread discrimination against the Catholics, the Irish, the Italians, the Asians, Jews and others — we have seen too much pain and too much humiliation.
Today we say to Donald Trump; “We are not going back to more bigotry, discrimination and division. We are going forward toward a non-discriminatory society where, as Dr. King reminded us, we judge people not by the “color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
In my view, we cannot fully honor the spirit and legacy of Dr. King without understanding that racism, economic injustice, social injustice and environmental injustice exist in many, many forms – and must be aggressively combatted.
Racism is there when the median white family owns ten times more wealth than the median African American family, and when social mobility, the ability to move up the economic ladder, is far greater for young whites than young blacks. Racial equality must be central to combatting economic inequality, if we are to build an economy that works for all of us, and not just the top 1%.
Racism is there when the U.S. Supreme Court and cowardly Republican governors work overtime to suppress the vote and make it harder for people of color, poor people and young people to participate in our democracy. In my view, we ought to be making the right to vote a constitutional right, and enact automatic voter registration for every American.
Racism is there in our broken criminal justice system when we have more people in jail than any other country on earth – disproportionately black, Latino and Native America.
In my view, we need real criminal justice reform. And that includes investing in jobs and education, not more jails and incarceration. It means ending the cash bail system so that people no longer remain in jail for the crime of being poor.
It means ending the so-called war on drugs and minimum sentences. It means ending private prisons.
It means police department reform and understanding that lethal force is the last resort, not the first.
Racism is there when we have a massive level of health care disparity in this country, when the infant mortality rate in black communities is more than double the rate for white communities, and death rates from cancer and almost every other disease is far higher for blacks.
In my view, not only do we have to expand primary health care and build more community health centers, something that Congressman Jim Clyburn and I are working on, but we need to guarantee health care to every man, woman and child as a right – through a Medicare for All single payer program.
Racism is there when a black businessperson cannot get the loan from a bank that he/she needs in order to expand, or when federal or state grants do not come in equal measure into minority communities. We need to end all forms of redlining in this country, and make sure that communities get the help they require based on their needs.
Racism is there when gentrification pushes out black renters, black home owners and black business owners from communities their families have lived in for decades. We need a set of policies to guarantee that people can remain in the communities they love, and not be pushed out by big money interests.
It is my understanding that the theme of this day for the NAACP is education – and I couldn’t agree more about its importance. So let me be very clear, racism is there when the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country, with 34 percent of black kids living in poverty – three times the rate of white kids.
Racism is there when black schools are overcrowded, inadequately funded, are staffed with less experienced teachers and when African American high school dropout rates are far too high. And while this is a national problem, I understand that your teacher crisis is particularly severe here in South Carolina.
In my view, we have got to understand that education is a human right and that as the wealthiest country on earth, we should be providing the highest quality education in the world.
It is absurd that we have a dysfunctional childcare system in this county, which is too expensive for parents, while paying providers totally inadequate wages. We need to do what countries around the world do – and that is develop a high quality universal child care program that is affordable to every parent in South Carolina, Vermont and America.
When we talk about education we have got to get our priorities right and understand we cannot have failing underfunded public schools, while we increase military spending by $165 billion over a two year period.
When we talk about education, it is not a radical idea to make public colleges and universities tuition free and substantially reduce the outrageous level of debt, carried by so many students, especially African American young people.
And when we talk about higher education, let us not forget the enormously important role that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) play in providing quality education to the African American community.
In 1963, when I was a college student, a few years ago, I had the honor of being in Washington, DC for Dr. King’s March on Washington, where he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Along with hundreds of thousands of other Americans, I was there to demand an end to racism and to support Dr. King’s call for economic justice. Let us not forget that the title of that march was “Jobs and Freedom” – “jobs and freedom.”
I find it remarkable that 56 years after that march, many of the demands being made then are still being fought for today.
Back in 1963 at that march for “jobs and freedom,” Dr. King and the other organizers demanded that workers be paid a living wage.
Today we need to fulfill that demand and raise the minimum wage to a living wage — $15 per hour.
During that march Dr. King and the other organizers demanded “adequate and integrated education.”
Today we need to finish that work by improving public education and making higher education available to every American regardless of race or the income of his/her family.
During that march, Dr. King and the other organizers demanded decent and affordable housing. Today we need to finish that work. Instead of spending tens of billions of dollars on a wall with Mexico, we need to put people in this country to work building the affordable housing we desperately need.
During that march Dr. King and the other organizers demanded a federal jobs program in order to create full employment in our country.
Today we need to finish that work and move forward towards a jobs guarantee and a Green New Deal. We can and must end the pollution that disproportionately poisons the poor and people of color. We must transform our energy system to combat climate change and create a planet that is healthy and habitable for our children and grandchildren.
If our society is no longer paying to incarcerate millions of Americans and is not funding militarism and turns our attention, in the spirit of Dr. King, to lift up all Americans — if we end racism in the criminal justice system and in the voting booth – the is no limit to what we can accomplish.
I have no doubt that we can do this and create an America where justice truly is for all.
Let’s work together and, in the spirit of Dr. King, get it done.
