October 15, 2005 – Washington, DC

We thank God for enabling us to make another stop on this journey. It is not a ten year journey. It is a daily struggle – a 386 year journey. This journey from slavery to freedom to equality is a daunting journey. We know that strong minds break strong chains. And when we stand up, oppressors fall from our backs.

Our mission is not merely looking in the mirror at ourselves, and assessing personal behavior. But looking out the window at objective conditions and the policies under which we live. It is a journey that includes 150 million in South, Central and Latin America. It is a journey that includes the Caribbean and the family in the Diaspora. Millions more came on slave ships, the original source of commerce and trade, working without wages. In America, we are creditors, not debtors. The slave ship and the slave industry, written into our Constitution, distinguish our status from any other American journey. We were not met at Ellis Island at the welcome table. By the way, the Statute of Liberty was a gift from French abolitionist congratulating the Union victory over the Confederacy and ending slavery which we sealed with our blood and bodies.

We are in a tug of war for the soul of America, and global priorities. Whether there should be the Union, or shall it be the Confederacy and state’s rights. Shall it be slavery or freedom? Shall it be one big tent where we all function, or shall it be a small tent with many are left in the margins. Our nation must lead with superior ideas and sacrifice, not bully with threats and guns and bombs.

We are citizens – we are not refugees. We are survivors, not victims. We must face disgrace with dignity. And fight for a democracy bottom up for all, not top down for a few. We survived slavery, Jim Crow, faith based lynchings, pseudo science, perverted theology, legal and cultural race and gender supremacy – a system that distorted the image of God and saw us through a limited key hole and not through doors as a whole people And as Sister Maya Angelou said, and still we rise.

Today, though we come to change hearts and attitudes, we must still fight to change our objective conditions under which we live. We live in our faith, private. We live under the law, which is public. The entire Congress is up for re-election in 2006, 1/3 of the Senate, and key Governor’s races. And some sense we shall be measured by how we take on these public policy challenges.

Millions More Movement must march in Baton Rouge October 29th, and join labor and churches and survivors and civil rights, as we fight for the right to return and claim our land, our heritage, demand priorities for jobs, job training and contracts. The displaced survivors from the hurricane relief, are being displaced again in the reconstruction. A reconstruction lead by Karl Rove whose expertise is political restructuring, not economic restructuring.

Last week, the Secretary of HUD, speaking for the administration, said that New Orleans will not be majority Black any time soon, and the population may perhaps go from 70 to 35%, and the 9th Ward should not be rebuilt. If these demographics projected by the Administration hold up, it will change the political character of the City, Mayor’s office, congressional delegation, senate delegation and the Governor.

We need Millions More to take back the House and Senate in 2006 and the presidency in 2008.

What lessons have we learned on this journey?

#1 Don’t imitate the violence, racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Arabism, gay-bashing, the oppression, the hate. We must reject this cultural ugliness and change the course.

#2: We must be long distance runners and overtime players. One lap runners, glass jaw fighters, tender head, fragile hearts, can’t survive this struggle. The winners of this race must survive the curves and potholes in the road.

#3 No one is exempt from fighting. The innocent suffer. Too often the innocent suffer under oppressive systems. Whether Jesus the Christ, or Emmitt Till, or Mandela, or Martin Luther King, Medgar Evars, Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney. The jails and the graves cannot hold our bodies down. Somehow still we rise.

#4 No one has earned the right to do less than their best. The learned control the ignorant; the activist will control the in-active. We must think globally and act locally. It is hard to fight for democracy in South Africa, and then don’t vote here in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio and Florida, with maximum strength. 200,000 unregistered in North Carolina; 500,000 unregistered in Georgia.

We can defeat fraud with voting in maximum strength. 10 million unregistered Blacks hold the nation’s destiny in their hands.

#5 Unity is a virtue. The Bible suggests vision is an even greater virtue. Dr. King – Joseph, Moses, Malcolm, Dr. King, Frederick Douglass, were ethnic minorities with majority vision. Race is a prism through which we see. Not a prison with limits on what we see and how we feel. If the house is on fire, you just can’t save your room, even if your room full of virtuous people.

#6 Our ultimate strength is not in our race nor in our numbers, but in the righteousness of our cause. The clarity of our vision, and our moral authority. Our music, our athleticism, our scholarship, our scientific know-how, has changed the world, not just our side of town. Whenever the playing field is even and rules are public and the goals are clear, we master every foe and meet every challenge – whether football, basketball, track, tennis, or golf, we must even the field in ALL aspects of American life. We are global and Olympic, not just ghetto and limited.

The leaves from our trees can heal all nations. The world listened to us and then they say sang, We Shall Overcome, in Gdansk, Poland, and Tienanmen Square and in South Africa. We can change the world. We don’t’ live under a slave driven Jefferson democracy. We live under human rights Dr. King driven democracy. Our vision is inclusive, free of fascism, racism and anti-Semitism, Arab and gay-bashing, searching for equality. It’s good for the healing of the world.

#7 We need Millions More to avoid self-destructive behavior: drugs, cigarettes, 500,000 a year dying from cancer, 150,000 from smoking and 65,000 from second hand smoke. Violence. We have the power to drive the market for cocaine, crack and heroin, just by changing our minds and our behavior. Without a gun or a bomb, we can alter the drugs that are driving the jail industrial complex.

We need Millions More to use the power in our hands and disposal. We lost the 2004 elections, which will determine judges for the next half century, in part by fraud, but also by the margin of our non-vote.

We need Millions More with a passion for literacy. We must not choose 5 hours of TV every night, over three hours of reading without TV. We need Millions More to build a multi-racial coalition. We need not bear the cross alone to fight poverty, greed and war.

We need Millions More to act and react to what we saw in the Gulf, Mississippi, Alabama and New Orleans. We saw Katrina coming. We had a horse trainer in charge of emergency preparedness. And a President pre-occupied with bike riding and fundraising. The President nor a member of his Cabinet, nor the Red Cross, went to Ground Zero in New Orleans, as people floated face down in the waters, as they did in New York.

The images were burned into the consciousness of the whole world – the whole world was watching.

It was not only the hurricane in New Orleans, but a flood. A barge, which should have never been in the area in the canal next to where people live, was driven loose from its anchor and hit a retaining wall and unleashed violent waters - a kind of tsunami, on people as they slept. The collision sounded like a bomb. Were the floods of 1965 and 2005 avoidable? We deserve to know.

We are not victims. We are survivors. People survived the hurricane, the flood, police going AWOL and beatings, stealing cars. We survived. No plan for rescue. No plan to accept relief. Dislocation in 41 states. The disruption of families. And now Karl Rove is over reconstruction, when his skill is political restructuring.

President Bush has put forth a federal bail out on state’s rights terms. Suspending prevailing wages, affirmative action, veterans’ preferences, and environmental protections – issuing no bid contracts to his friends, over no bid contracts to the affected people.

Millions More Movement must march in Baton Rouge October 29th, as we fight for the right to return and claim our land, our heritage, demand priorities for jobs, job training and contracts. The displaced survivors from the hurricane are being displaced again in the reconstruction. The unfinished business of the oppressive South is the battleground for challenging change. When we fight with focus, we can change Red states into Rainbow states, and create broad based, bottom up democracies.

The Million More Movement must dream beyond our circumstances. Be of courage. Be strong. Be political astute. Be economically frugal. Stand up with faith. Fight the right fight. Never surrender. Put faith in God. Beyond faith based we must be Love based. Through it all we must be better, not bitter, bitterness blinds and hatred paralyzes. We must go forward by or hopes and dreams, not backwards by our fears. And still we rise.

We are dream makers and odds busters.

It’s difficult. Our challenges are awesome. And still we rise. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. If my people, who are called by name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked way, God will forgive our sins and heal our land.

A time for healing and hope. And a vision of peace and shared security. Keep Hope Alive.