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Thank you very much.
Tonight we come together bound by our faith in a mighty God, with
genuine respect and love for our country, and inheriting the legacy
of a great Party, the Democratic Party, which is the best hope for
redirecting our nation on a more humane, just, and peaceful course.
This is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people. Yet, we
are called to a perfect mission. Our mission: to feed the hungry;
to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate;
to provide jobs for the jobless; and to choose the human race over
the nuclear race.
We are gathered here this week to nominate a candidate and adopt
a platform which will expand, unify, direct, and inspire our Party
and the nation to fulfill this mission. My constituency is the desperate,
the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised.
They are restless and seek relief. They have voted in record numbers.
They have invested the faith, hope, and trust that they have in us.
The Democratic Party must send them a signal that we care. I pledge
my best not to let them down.
There is the call of conscience, redemption, expansion, healing,
and unity. Leadership must heed the call of conscience, redemption,
expansion, healing, and unity, for they are the key to achieving our
mission. Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage
and initiative, leaders change things.
No generation can choose the age or circumstance in which it is born,
but through leadership it can choose to make the age in which it is
born an age of enlightenment, an age of jobs, and peace, and justice.
Only leadership -- that intangible combination of gifts, the discipline,
information, circumstance, courage, timing, will and divine inspiration
-- can lead us out of the crisis in which we find ourselves. Leadership
can mitigate the misery of our nation. Leadership can part the waters
and lead our nation in the direction of the Promised Land. Leadership
can lift the boats stuck at the bottom.
I have had the rare opportunity to watch seven men, and then two,
pour out their souls, offer their service, and heal and heed the call
of duty to direct the course of our nation. There is a proper season
for everything. There is a time to sow and a time to reap. There's
a time to compete and a time to cooperate.
I ask for your vote on the first ballot as a vote for a new direction
for this Party and this nation -- a vote of conviction, a vote of
conscience. But I will be proud to support the nominee of this convention
for the Presidency of the United States of America. Thank you.
I have watched the leadership of our party develop and grow. My respect
for both Mr. Mondale and Mr. Hart is great. I have watched them struggle
with the crosswinds and crossfires of being public servants, and I
believe they will both continue to try to serve us faithfully.
I am elated by the knowledge that for the first time in our history
a woman, Geraldine Ferraro, will be recommended to share our ticket.
Throughout this campaign, I've tried to offer leadership to the Democratic
Party and the nation. If, in my high moments, I have done some good,
offered some service, shed some light, healed some wounds, rekindled
some hope, or stirred someone from apathy and indifference, or in
any way along the way helped somebody, then this campaign has not
been in vain.
For friends who loved and cared for me, and for a God who spared
me, and for a family who understood, I am eternally grateful.
If, in my low moments, in word, deed or attitude, through some error
of temper, taste, or tone, I have caused anyone discomfort, created
pain, or revived someone's fears, that was not my truest self. If
there were occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy
bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and
not to my heart. My head -- so limited in its finitude; my heart,
which is boundless in its love for the human family. I am not a perfect
servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As
I develop and serve, be patient: God is not finished with me yet.
This campaign has taught me much; that leaders must be tough enough
to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble
enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient
enough to bounce back and keep on moving.
For leaders, the pain is often intense. But you must smile through
your tears and keep moving with the faith that there is a brighter
side somewhere.
I went to see Hubert Humphrey three days before he died. He had just
called Richard Nixon from his dying bed, and many people wondered
why. And I asked him. He said, "Jesse, from this vantage point,
the sun is setting in my life, all of the speeches, the political
conventions, the crowds, and the great fights are behind me now. At
a time like this you are forced to deal with your irreducible essence,
forced to grapple with that which is really important to you. And
what I've concluded about life," Hubert Humphrey said, "When
all is said and done, we must forgive each other, and redeem each
other, and move on."
Our party is emerging from one of its most hard fought battles for
the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in our history. But
our healthy competition should make us better, not bitter. We must
use the insight, wisdom, and experience of the late Hubert Humphrey
as a balm for the wounds in our Party, this nation, and the world.
We must forgive each other, redeem each other, regroup, and move one.
Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow -- red,
yellow, brown, black and white -- and we're all precious in God's
sight.
America is not like a blanket -- one piece of unbroken cloth, the
same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like
a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven
and held together by a common thread. The white, the Hispanic, the
black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the native American, the small
farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist,
the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled make up
the American quilt.
Even in our fractured state, all of us count and fit somewhere. We
have proven that we can survive without each other. But we have not
proven that we can win and make progress without each other. We must
come together.
From Fannie Lou Hamer in Atlantic City in 1964 to the Rainbow Coalition
in San Francisco today; from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we have
experienced pain but progress, as we ended American apartheid laws.
We got public accommodations. We secured voting rights. We obtained
open housing, as young people got the right to vote. We lost Malcolm,
Martin, Medgar, Bobby, John, and Viola. The team that got us here
must be expanded, not abandoned.
Twenty years ago, tears welled up in our eyes as the bodies of Schwerner,
Goodman, and Chaney were dredged from the depths of a river in Mississippi.
Twenty years later, our communities, black and Jewish, are in anguish,
anger, and pain. Feelings have been hurt on both sides. There is a
crisis in communications. Confusion is in the air. But we cannot afford
to lose our way. We may agree to agree; or agree to disagree on issues;
we must bring back civility to these tensions.
We are co-partners in a long and rich religious history -- the Judeo-Christian
traditions. Many blacks and Jews have a shared passion for social
justice at home and peace abroad. We must seek a revival of the spirit,
inspired by a new vision and new possibilities. We must return to
higher ground. We are bound by Moses and Jesus, but also connected
with Islam and Mohammed. These three great religions, Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam, were all born in the revered and holy city of Jerusalem.
We are bound by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Heschel,
crying out from their graves for us to reach common ground. We are
bound by shared blood and shared sacrifices. We are much too intelligent,
much too bound by our Judeo-Christian heritage, much too victimized
by racism, sexism, militarism, and anti-Semitism, much too threatened
as historical scapegoats to go on divided one from another. We must
turn from finger pointing to clasped hands. We must share our burdens
and our joys with each other once again. We must turn to each other
and not on each other and choose higher ground.
Twenty years later, we cannot be satisfied by just restoring the
old coalition. Old wine skins must make room for new wine. We must
heal and expand. The Rainbow Coalition is making room for Arab Americans.
They, too, know the pain and hurt of racial and religious rejection.
They must not continue to be made pariahs. The Rainbow Coalition is
making room for Hispanic Americans who this very night are living
under the threat of the Simpson-Mazzoli bill; and farm workers from
Ohio who are fighting the Campbell Soup Company with a boycott to
achieve legitimate workers' rights.
The Rainbow is making room for the Native American, the most exploited
people of all, a people with the greatest moral claim amongst us.
We support them as they seek the restoration of their ancient land
and claim amongst us. We support them as they seek the restoration
of land and water rights, as they seek to preserve their ancestral
homeland and the beauty of a land that was once all theirs. They can
never receive a fair share for all they have given us. They must finally
have a fair chance to develop their great resources and to preserve
their people and their culture.
The Rainbow Coalition includes Asian Americans, now being killed
in our streets -- scapegoats for the failures of corporate, industrial,
and economic policies.
The Rainbow is making room for the young Americans. Twenty years
ago, our young people were dying in a war for which they could not
even vote. Twenty years later, young America has the power to stop
a war in Central America and the responsibility to vote in great numbers.
Young America must be politically active in 1984. The choice is war
or peace. We must make room for young America.
The Rainbow includes disabled veterans. The color scheme fits in
the Rainbow. The disabled have their handicap revealed and their genius
concealed; while the able-bodied have their genius revealed and their
disability concealed. But ultimately, we must judge people by their
values and their contribution. Don't leave anybody out. I would rather
have Roosevelt in a wheelchair than Reagan on a horse.
The Rainbow is making room for small farmers. They have suffered
tremendously under the Reagan regime. They will either receive 90
percent parity or 100 percent charity. We must address their concerns
and make room for them. The Rainbow includes lesbians and gays. No
American citizen ought be denied equal protection from the law.
We must be unusually committed and caring as we expand our family
to include new members. All of us must be tolerant and understanding
as the fears and anxieties of the rejected and the party leadership
express themselves in many different ways. Too often what we call
hate -- as if it were some deeply-rooted philosophy or strategy --
is simply ignorance, anxiety, paranoia, fear, and insecurity. To be
strong leaders, we must be long-suffering as we seek to right the
wrongs of our Party and our nation. We must expand our Party, heal
our Party, and unify our Party. That is our mission in 1984.
We are often reminded that we live in a great nation -- and we do.
But it can be greater still. The Rainbow is mandating a new definition
of greatness. We must not measure greatness from the mansion down,
but the manger up. Jesus said that we should not be judged by the
bark we wear but by the fruit that we bear. Jesus said that we must
measure greatness by how we treat the least of these.
President Reagan says the nation is in recovery. Those 90,000 corporations
that made a profit last year but paid no federal taxes are recovering.
The 37,000 military contractors who have benefited from Reagan's more
than doubling of the military budget in peacetime, surely they are
recovering. The big corporations and rich individuals who received
the bulk of a three-year, multibillion tax cut from Mr. Reagan are
recovering. But no such recovery is under way for the least of these.
Rising tides don't lift all boats, particularly those stuck at the
bottom. For the boats stuck at the bottom there's a misery index.
This Administration has made life more miserable for the poor. Its
attitude has been contemptuous. Its policies and programs have been
cruel and unfair to working people. They must be held accountable
in November for increasing infant mortality among the poor. In Detroit
one of the great cities of the western world, babies are dying at
the same rate as Honduras, the most underdeveloped nation in our hemisphere.
This Administration must be held accountable for policies that have
contributed to the growing poverty in America. There are now 34 million
people in poverty, 15 percent of our nation. 23 million are White;
11 million Black, Hispanic, Asian, and others -- mostly women and
children. By the end of this year, there will be 41 million people
in poverty. We cannot stand idly by. We must fight for a change now.
Under this regime we look at Social Security. The '81 budget cuts
included nine permanent Social Security benefit cuts totaling 20 billion
over five years. Small businesses have suffered under Reagan tax cuts.
Only 18 percent of total business tax cuts went to them; 82 percent
to big businesses. Health care under Mr. Reagan has already been sharply
cut. Education under Mr. Reagan has been cut 25 percent. Under Mr.
Reagan there are now 9.7 million female head families. They represent
16 percent of all families. Half of all of them are poor. 70 percent
of all poor children live in a house headed by a woman, where there
is no man. Under Mr. Reagan, the Administration has cleaned up only
6 of 546 priority toxic waste dumps. Farmers' real net income was
only about half its level in 1979.
Many say that the race in November will be decided in the South.
President Reagan is depending on the conservative South to return
him to office. But the South, I tell you, is unnaturally conservative.
The South is the poorest region in our nation and, therefore, [has]
the least to conserve. In his appeal to the South, Mr. Reagan is trying
to substitute flags and prayer cloths for food, and clothing, and
education, health care, and housing.
Mr. Reagan will ask us to pray, and I believe in prayer. I have come
to this way by the power of prayer. But then, we must watch false
prophecy. He cuts energy assistance to the poor, cuts breakfast programs
from children, cuts lunch programs from children, cuts job training
from children, and then says to an empty table, "Let us pray."
Apparently, he is not familiar with the structure of a prayer. You
thank the Lord for the food that you are about to receive, not the
food that just left. I think that we should pray, but don't pray for
the food that left. Pray for the man that took the food to leave.
We need a change. We need a change in November.
Under Mr. Reagan, the misery index has risen for the poor. The danger
index has risen for everybody. Under this administration, we've lost
the lives of our boys in Central America and Honduras, in Grenada,
in Lebanon, in nuclear standoff in Europe. Under this Administration,
one-third of our children believe they will die in a nuclear war.
The danger index is increasing in this world. All the talk about the
defense against Russia; the Russian submarines are closer, and their
missiles are more accurate. We live in a world tonight more miserable
and a world more dangerous.
While Reaganomics and Reaganism is talked about often, so often we
miss the real meaning. Reaganism is a spirit, and Reaganomics represents
the real economic facts of life. In 1980, Mr. George Bush, a man with
reasonable access to Mr. Reagan, did an analysis of Mr. Reagan's economic
plan. Mr. George Bush concluded that Reagan's plan was ''voodoo economics.''
He was right. Third-party candidate John Anderson said "a combination
of military spending, tax cuts, and a balanced budget by '84 would
be accomplished with blue smoke and mirrors." They were both
right.
Mr. Reagan talks about a dynamic recovery. There's some measure of
recovery. Three and a half years later, unemployment has inched just
below where it was when he took office in 1981. There are still 8.1
million people officially unemployed; 11 million working only part-time.
Inflation has come down, but let's analyze for a moment who has paid
the price for this superficial economic recovery.
Mr. Reagan curbed inflation by cutting consumer demand. He cut consumer
demand with conscious and callous fiscal and monetary policies. He
used the Federal budget to deliberately induce unemployment and curb
social spending. He then weighed and supported tight monetary policies
of the Federal Reserve Board to deliberately drive up interest rates,
again to curb consumer demand created through borrowing. Unemployment
reached 10.7 percent. We experienced skyrocketing interest rates.
Our dollar inflated abroad. There were record bank failures, record
farm foreclosures, record business bankruptcies; record budget deficits,
record trade deficits.
Mr. Reagan brought inflation down by destabilizing our economy and
disrupting family life. He promised -- he promised in 1980 a balanced
budget. But instead we now have a record 200 billion dollar budget
deficit. Under Mr. Reagan, the cumulative budget deficit for his four
years is more than the sum total of deficits from George Washington
to Jimmy Carter combined. I tell you, we need a change.
How is he paying for these short-term jobs? Reagan's economic recovery
is being financed by deficit spending -- 200 billion dollars a year.
Military spending, a major cause of this deficit, is projected over
the next five years to be nearly 2 trillion dollars, and will cost
about 40,000 dollars for every taxpaying family. When the Government
borrows 200 billion dollars annually to finance the deficit, this
encourages the private sector to make its money off of interest rates
as opposed to development and economic growth.
Even money abroad, we don't have enough money domestically to finance
the debt, so we are now borrowing money abroad, from foreign banks,
governments and financial institutions: 40 billion dollars in 1983;
70-80 billion dollars in 1984 -- 40 percent of our total; over 100
billion dollars -- 50 percent of our total -- in 1985. By 1989, it
is projected that 50 percent of all individual income taxes will be
going just to pay for interest on that debt. The United States used
to be the largest exporter of capital, but under Mr. Reagan we will
quite likely become the largest debtor nation.
About two weeks ago, on July the 4th, we celebrated our Declaration
of Independence, yet every day supply-side economics is making our
nation more economically dependent and less economically free. Five
to six percent of our Gross National Product is now being eaten up
with President Reagan's budget deficits. To depend on foreign military
powers to protect our national security would be foolish, making us
dependent and less secure. Yet, Reaganomics has us increasingly dependent
on foreign economic sources. This consumer-led but deficit-financed
recovery is unbalanced and artificial. We have a challenge as Democrats
to point a way out.
Democracy guarantees opportunity, not success.
Democracy guarantees the right to participate, not a license for
either a majority or a minority to dominate.
The victory for the Rainbow Coalition in the Platform debates today
was not whether we won or lost, but that we raised the right issues.
We could afford to lose the vote; issues are non-negotiable. We could
not afford to avoid raising the right questions. Our self-respect
and our moral integrity were at stake. Our heads are perhaps bloody,
but not bowed. Our back is straight. We can go home and face our people.
Our vision is clear.
When we think, on this journey from slave-ship to championship, that
we have gone from the planks of the Boardwalk in Atlantic City in
1964 to fighting to help write the planks in the platform in San Francisco
in '84, there is a deep and abiding sense of joy in our souls in spite
of the tears in our eyes. Though there are missing planks, there is
a solid foundation upon which to build. Our party can win, but we
must provide hope which will inspire people to struggle and achieve;
provide a plan that shows a way out of our dilemma and then lead the
way.
In 1984, my heart is made to feel glad because I know there is a
way out -- justice. The requirement for rebuilding America is justice.
The linchpin of progressive politics in our nation will not come from
the North; they, in fact, will come from the South. That is why I
argue over and over again. We look from Virginia around to Texas,
there's only one black Congressperson out of 115. Nineteen years later,
we're locked out of the Congress, the Senate and the Governor's mansion.
What does this large black vote mean? Why do I fight to win second
primaries and fight gerrymandering and annexation and at-large [elections].
Why do we fight over that? Because I tell you, you cannot hold someone
in the ditch unless you linger there with them. Unless you linger
there.
If you want a change in this nation, you enforce that Voting Rights
Act. We'll get 12 to 20 Black, Hispanics, female and progressive congresspersons
from the South. We can save the cotton, but we've got to fight the
boll weevils. We've got to make a judgment. We've got to make a judgment.
It is not enough to hope ERA will pass. How can we pass ERA? If Blacks
vote in great numbers, progressive Whites win. It's the only way progressive
Whites win. If Blacks vote in great numbers, Hispanics win. When Blacks,
Hispanics, and progressive Whites vote, women win. When women win,
children win. When women and children win, workers win. We must all
come up together. We must come up together.
Thank you.
For all of our joy and excitement, we must not save the world and
lose our souls. We should never short-circuit enforcing the Voting
Rights Act at every level. When one of us rise[s], all of us will
rise. Justice is the way out. Peace is the way out. We should not
act as if nuclear weaponry is negotiable and debatable.
In this world in which we live, we dropped the bomb on Japan and
felt guilty, but in 1984 other folks [have] also got bombs. This time,
if we drop the bomb, six minutes later we, too, will be destroyed.
It's not about dropping the bomb on somebody. It is about dropping
the bomb on everybody. We must choose to develop minds over guided
missiles, and think it out and not fight it out. It's time for a change.
Our foreign policy must be characterized by mutual respect, not by
gunboat diplomacy, big stick diplomacy, and threats. Our nation at
its best feeds the hungry. Our nation at its worst, at its worst,
will mine the harbors of Nicaragua, at its worst will try to overthrow
their government, at its worst will cut aid to American education
and increase the aid to El Salvador; at its worst, our nation will
have partnerships with South Africa. That's a moral disgrace. It's
a moral disgrace. It's a moral disgrace.
We look at Africa. We cannot just focus on Apartheid in Southern
Africa. We must fight for trade with Africa, and not just aid to Africa.
We cannot stand idly by and say we will not relate to Nicaragua unless
they have elections there, and then embrace military regimes in Africa
overthrowing democratic governments in Nigeria and Liberia and Ghana.
We must fight for democracy all around the world and play the game
by one set of rules.
Peace in this world. Our present formula for peace in the Middle
East is inadequate. It will not work. There are 22 nations in the
Middle East. Our nation must be able to talk and act and influence
all of them. We must build upon Camp David, and measure human rights
by one yard stick. In that region we have too many interests and too
few friends.
There is a way out -- jobs. Put America back to work. When I was
a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, the Reverend Sample
used to preach every so often a sermon relating to Jesus. And he said,
"If I be lifted up, I'll draw all men unto me." I didn't
quite understand what he meant as a child growing up, but I understand
a little better now. If you raise up truth, it's magnetic. It has
a way of drawing people.
With all this confusion in this Convention, the bright lights and
parties and big fun, we must raise up the simple proposition: If we
lift up a program to feed the hungry, they'll come running; if we
lift up a program to study war no more, our youth will come running;
if we lift up a program to put America back to work, and an alternative
to welfare and despair, they will come working.
If we cut that military budget without cutting our defense, and use
that money to rebuild bridges and put steel workers back to work,
and use that money and provide jobs for our cities, and use that money
to build schools and pay teachers and educate our children and build
hospitals and train doctors and train nurses, the whole nation will
come running to us.
As I leave you now, we vote in this convention and get ready to go
back across this nation in a couple of days. In this campaign, I've
tried to be faithful to my promise. I lived in old barrios, ghettos,
and reservations and housing projects. I have a message for our youth.
I challenge them to put hope in their brains and not dope in their
veins. I told them that like Jesus, I, too, was born in the slum.
But just because you're born in the slum does not mean the slum is
born in you, and you can rise above it if your mind is made up. I
told them in every slum there are two sides. When I see a broken window
-- that's the slummy side. Train some youth to become a glazier --
that's the sunny side. When I see a missing brick -- that's the slummy
side. Let that child in the union and become a brick mason and build
-- that's the sunny side. When I see a missing door -- that's the
slummy side. Train some youth to become a carpenter -- that's the
sunny side. And when I see the vulgar words and hieroglyphics of destitution
on the walls -- that's the slummy side. Train some youth to become
a painter, an artist -- that's the sunny side.
We leave this place looking for the sunny side because there's a
brighter side somewhere. I'm more convinced than ever that we can
win. We will vault up the rough side of the mountain. We can win.
I just want young America to do me one favor, just one favor. Exercise
the right to dream. You must face reality -- that which is. But then
dream of a reality that ought to be -- that must be. Live beyond the
pain of reality with the dream of a bright tomorrow. Use hope and
imagination as weapons of survival and progress. Use love to motivate
you and obligate you to serve the human family.
Young America, dream. Choose the human race over the nuclear race.
Bury the weapons and don't burn the people. Dream -- dream of a new
value system. Teachers who teach for life and not just for a living;
teach because they can't help it. Dream of lawyers more concerned
about justice than a judgeship. Dream of doctors more concerned about
public health than personal wealth. Dream of preachers and priests
who will prophesy and not just profiteer. Preach and dream!
Our time has come. Our time has come. Suffering breeds character.
Character breeds faith. In the end, faith will not disappoint. Our
time has come. Our faith, hope, and dreams will prevail. Our time
has come. Weeping has endured for nights, but now joy cometh in the
morning. Our time has come. No grave can hold our body down. Our time
has come. No lie can live forever. Our time has come. We must leave
racial battle ground and come to economic common ground and moral
higher ground. America, our time has come. We come from disgrace to
amazing grace. Our time has come. Give me your tired, give me your
poor, your huddled masses who yearn to breathe free and come November,
there will be a change because our time has come.
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