I want to thank Mary Clark for
inviting me to be here tonight. You can
tell how much Mary cares about justice and this community by the amount of
effort and creativity she puts into this event year after year. Mary is a great teacher, a wonderful wife and
mother and a true community hero. You
are so blessed to have her here. She is
what God calls us to be – faith without work is dead.
Our father’s God to Thee, Author of
Liberty. To thee we sing. Long may our land be bright with freedom’s
holy light. Protect us by thy
might. Great God our King.
You have heard the expression, It is always darkest just
before dawn. According to
one source it means, There is hope, even in the worst of circumstances. No one seems to know where the proverb came
from. It has been around at least since
1650 when it appeared in a travelogue written by English theologian and
historian Thomas Fuller.
There are some examples in history
of our people of darkness before dawn.
Suppose
Frederick Douglass and the abolitionists had given up when the Dred Scot
decision was rendered in 1857, three years before the Civil War? That was a dark time. March 1857 Supreme Courts issues Dred Scott
Decision which declares unconstitutional the Missouri Compromise of 1820. was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in
which the Court held that African Americans, whether slave or free,
could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal
court.
Suppose the women’s suffrage
movement had given up. We just
celebrated 100 years of Delta Sigma Theta.
Did you know that all the red and white hoopla got started because 22
young ladies at Howard University wanted the right to vote? They marched down Pennsylvania Avenue with
white women. It took seven more years
for them to get the right to vote. You
can’t let darkness hold you back from doing what is right. Women voted in New Zealand in 1893, in Australia in 1895; in Russia in 1907 and in Finland in
1913.
Suppose we had given up trying to
get the King Holiday. When I was a
student at UGA we marched around the law school every year from 1977 to 1980,
protesting for the King Holiday. It
finally became a holiday in 1983 when Ronald Reagan signed the bill. But that was after 6 million Americans signed
a petition in favor of the holiday.
South Carolina was the last state to make it an official holiday – in
2000. Thousands of people marched in
Greenville – making Greenville County the last county in the last state. And we had to cross over and vote in the
Republican primary to defeat anti-King Holiday county commissioners.
And there is plenty of darkness in
our world today. John Conyers,
Congressman from Michigan, is still fighting for same day onsite voter
registration. He started the fight back
in the 1980’s. And if he doesn’t finish
it, then one of you will have to pick up the baton and run your leg of the
race. Adjusted for inflation, the
average Georgia family in effect makes $6000 less than the average family did
ten years ago. That’s a real pay cut.”
According to a recent report by the
U.S. Census Bureau, Georgia has the sixth
highest poverty rate in the country. More than
one in four Georgia families with children under the age of five live below the
poverty line. Rural Georgians have been hit particularly hard – twenty-seven
percent live below the poverty line.
On Deal’s watch, classroom sizes have swelled as
a result of 9,000 teachers losing their jobs. Eighty percent of Georgia’s
school districts have now exceeded class-size caps. Eighty percent of Georgia
school districts will furlough teachers this year due to cuts in state funding.
Thirty-eight percent of districts have been forced to make cuts on programs
that help low-performing students. Seventy-one percent of Georgia’s school
districts have cut their school calendar to fewer than 180 days. Before Nathan
Deal took office, Ninety percent of students in Georgia attended school 180
days or more.
Some of you know that my father was a hall of
fame high school football coach during the days of segregation in Greenville,
SC. We grew up with football. We had x’s and o’s at the dinner table. We had the portable tv in the dining room for
Sunday dinner so he could watch the nfl game of the week. He had a favorite saying. Don’t get in the give up formation. Get in the Shotgun formation. Get in the I.
But don’t get in the give up formation.
Don’t give up on fighting poverty.
Don’t give up on expanding Medicaid.
Don’t give up on a high quality public education
for all children.
Don’t give up on the right to vote.
Because if you think you are beaten you are.
GEORGIA IS
CHANGING. Georgia's 16 electoral
votes will be in play over the next decade according to demographers. In 2012, Georgia was the second most
competitive state carried by Mitt Romney (+7.8 percent Romney) -- behind only
North Carolina (+2.0 percent Romney). In 2000, Georgia's population was 63
percent white; as of the 2010 Census the state's population is 56 percent
white. Of the state's 1.5 million new residents
between 2000 and 2010, more than 80 percent (1.2 million, or 81 percent) were
non-white. Demographics are destiny" is a
political cliché largely because it's true. But change is not automatic. We
must organize, register and vote. And we must be prepared to lead. A
steady diet of twerking and marijuana does not leaders make. Leaders
need to think, compute, write standard English.
And some things are more important
than winning. Rev. Jackson likes to say,
leave some footprints on the door. If
you can’t get in….leave some footprints on the door.
I want to say a word about Medicaid. Some of you can’t remember 1988 and the
Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.
Jesse Jackson was running for President for the second time. Michael Dukakis was the frontrunner and the
Democratic Party’s nominee. Jackson won
Michigan and South Carolina – so he had a significant number of electoral votes
going into the convention. And the
convention was in Atlanta. It was electric. It was the first time that a black
man was seriously considered for the Presidency of the United States. In Atlanta he said something like this…
Most poor people are not lazy. Most poor
people are not on welfare.
hey catch the early bus. They work every
day.
They raise other people's children. They
work every day.
They
clean the streets. They work every day. They change the beds you slept in in
these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work every day.
No,
no, they are not lazy! They work in hospitals. I know they do. They wipe the
bodies of those who are sick with fever and pain. They empty their bedpans.
They clean out their commodes. No job is beneath them, and yet when they get
sick they cannot lie in the bed they made up every day.
Now,
25 years later, we are about to make it possible for them to lie in the bed
they make up every day. Call Nathan Deal
at 404 656 1776. Tell him to expand
Medicaid. Join Moral Monday.
Sometimes dawn takes a long time coming. Sometimes the darkness lasts a long time. Tyrone
Brooks fought to change the Georgia flag for more than ten years before it
happened. Don’t give up the fight. Don’t get in the give up formation. When it
is dark, that is when you have to let your little light shine.
Let
it shine
Let
it shine
Let
it shine
Don’t
give up the fight. The race does not go
to the swiftest or to the strong, but to those who endure…until the sun comes
up.
The Bible says we have a great cloud of
witnesses watching us and cheering us on.
By Faith, Abraham. By Faith,
Moses, By Faith, sarah. But also, By
Faith Martin Luther King. By Faith,
Harriet Tubman. Who do you think sent
the bol weevil to destroy the cotton and the cotton gin to destroy
slavery? Are these any less miracles
than the red sea and the manna from heaven because we don’t teach them to our
children that way and because these miracles happened only a little less than
two hundred years ago. Do you believe
that God is still acting in the affairs of men?
Well, if you believe in a miracle working God, I
will tell you something.
If
we believe that God is the author of liberty.
Then we should pray that our land
be bright with freedom’s holy light. And
that He will protect us by his might.
I
saw Toyota sign a 7.8 billion dollar
deal to do business with blacks.
I saw Kentucky Fried Chicken commit 20 million
dollars to open black franchises. They
did not want to do it, but by the power of the Holy Spirit they did.
I
saw the Greenville County Council adopt the King Holiday. They didn’t want to do it but they did.
I have seen miracles in my life. I saw George Bush sign the extension of the
voting rights act. He did not want to do
it, but he did. I have seen a lot of
things in my life. You can’t tell me
that God is not good, or that miracles don’t exist. I have been punting on the
Thames and seen the fjords of Norway. I
saw my mother take her last breath and my grandson take his first step. I have seen a lot. I flew in airplanes all
day on September 10th and got home just before day and just in time
to avoid 911.
I
have seen a lot.
But I have never seen the righteous forsaken…or
their seed begging bread.
May God continue to bless and keep you.
