Transcription
[Music]
We, as a people, must not allow our leaders to be marginalized or to reach a point where we don't want to hear from those who have spoken words of encouragement and liberation to many who have no voices. He stands as the conscience of America, provoking America to do what is right, to stay on course. Without him and many others like him, we would not have the freedoms we have today. So, I hope that you will stand on your feet and encourage one of our great leaders, the Reverend Al Sharpton, here in the great city of P. Thank you, thank you very much.
Thank you very much. First, to our pastor, and certainly, isn't this a beautiful church, Reverend Marin and Grove, and to Miss White, Sister White, and the Urban League, and to all of you, the elected officials, the members of the clergy, and to all of you that have come out tonight. I'm very happy and honored to be here and to be a part of this gathering at a crucial time.
When I heard about the call to act now, that is exactly what we need to be talking about. There is a problem around the country where many of us suffer from what I call "Negro amnesia." That is where we have forgotten where we come from. When you forget where you come from, you don't know where you are, and you clearly won't know where to go. There are some who act as though they arrived where they are by themselves.
I was talking to Sister White, and we talked about the Urban League and the National Action Network, the group I work very closely with. The National Urban League's president, Marc Morial, I talked to just this morning. I'm speaking next week at their national convention. She was saying that part of what she was doing is letting people understand the need to work with the Urban League. It's almost indicative of this problem that people have to convince us to work for ourselves with groups that are responsible for where we are. That doesn't even really make sense.
When you get some of us who have benefited better than others, you should be the first ones involved. You know, people that tell you, "Well, I got there because of my skills," or "I got there because of my pedigree," or "my education." First of all, you're not the first smart Negro in America. Black folks have been smart for a long time. You were able to take your smartness where others couldn't because people like the Urban League fought to open doors for you. Let's not ever forget that.
Blacks were ready to play baseball before Jackie Robinson; we just couldn't play. Blacks were ready to be president before Obama; America just wasn't ready. So, don't get in your highfalutin place and forget that there were some people who didn't have degrees, who didn't have the pedigree, who didn't have the background, but they went to the streets and sponsored you the way you are. You are a result of people who opened doors for you. So, even if you choose to be uninvolved, at least don't be ungrateful.
This brings me right into what we're talking about tonight. First, when we look at what they're doing with voting, all of a sudden in Virginia and in other states, they've come up with this government photo ID. Now, I hear folks saying, "Well, you got to have ID to do anything," and you do. Nobody is against ID. We're not saying don't have ID. What we're saying is, why do we need a different ID? We always used ID to vote. Let's have the same ID that we had when Nixon ran, and Reagan ran, and Carter ran.
So, let me get this right: when Clinton, Bush, and all of them ran, we used our ID. Now, all of a sudden, when Obama runs for reelection, you need a government photo ID. Well, why do we need a different ID now? We got to avoid fraud, but where has the fraud been? We did the research; there's been 0.003% fraud—less than 1% fraud. Voter ID is a solution looking for a problem, not a problem in need of a solution. The only voter fraud is the fraud of voter ID.
So, the first thing we need to do is deal with those [Music] [Applause]. But at the same time, we have to have a two-pronged strategy. We are working on this with the Urban League and all of us around the country. As we fight the laws, we have to go and make sure people get the ID so they can vote this time.
Now, why can't people get the ID? Well, seniors and students, it's not as easy as that. I grew up in a single-parent home. About four or five years ago, my father and I reconciled. He called me from Florida, 85 years old, saying he got a letter saying that if he didn't come get his photo ID, he couldn't vote. He had been voting there for 45 years. He said, "I'm 85! Luckily, I'm healthy and I have a car, but a lot of my friends who are seniors have no transportation. They're on a fixed income, so it costs money to get a passport or whatever is required." We have to go and provide that. We've got to go and make that happen. That's why you need to be involved in [Music].
We cannot lose and have our choices, whoever they may be. The Urban League is nonpartisan; they are going to tell you who to vote for. We're going to tell you to vote and vote for whoever is going to stand up for you. It's just that simple. It's not a question of who you're for; the question is, who's for you? And everybody that is Black ain't necessarily for me. Everybody that's my color and my kind, I want to know what you're going to do.
I'm tired of electing just Blacks, and they get there and forget what we elected them for. We didn't send you down there to be a big shot; we sent you down there to represent us. The thing that gets me mad, Reverend, is that some of our elected officials, some of our corporate leaders, and some of our preachers, we get them in position, and they start modifying and moderating and taking shortcuts. I said, "Well, what happened to you? What's wrong with you?"
"Well, it's a new strategy." But what is the strategy? "Well, you got to go along to get along." No! If you're scared, say you're scared. Don't act like you've figured out something we haven't figured out. Just say, "I'm scared," and sit down and shut up, and let somebody who's not scared stand up and do what has to be done.
We talk about the Civil Rights Movement back in the day; we need a movement now. Today, our schools are worse. Same city, same school system, yet they can't teach reading on one side of town, but they can teach it on the other side. Four grades behind in reading, five grades behind in mathematics, yet we pay the same tax but don't get the same education. We've got work to do. [Applause] [Music]
Today, the unemployed—we're not asking for favors; we're asking for what we're supposed to have. Then, when they talk about the country being broke, who broke it? How are you going to tell us that got the least that we got to give the most? Reagan came in; he had a trickle-down economic theory. Give a tax cut to the rich, said it would trickle down to the rest of us. That was 1980; it's 2012, and we got the trickle down and never got the trickle.
Now, after wars that we shouldn't have gone into, tax hikes for the rich, now they're going to come and tell us that we need to sacrifice because of the deficit in the country. Where are you going to cover the deficit from? They're going to cut Medicare, cut Social Security. That's why, as I tour this country about voting, this election is not just about Obama; it's about your mama. They want to rearrange the whole social dynamic of this country.
So, no one should have to beg you to vote. No one should have to beg you to get involved. Do you realize that Martin Luther King, Fannie Lou Hamer, A. Philip Randolph, Adam Clayton Powell, Malcolm X—they all changed this country with a mimeograph machine and a rotary phone? Here you are in the 21st century with all this technology—laptops all over your house, Blackberries in one pocket, two cell phones in the other, Facebook, Twitter—you got 50 different ways to communicate and can't get five people together to do nothing?
Why did they pay a price? They paid the price hoping that if they opened a door for you, you would keep the door open and open other doors for those behind you. Had they any idea that you were going to walk through those doors and forget your obligation? They could have gone on and lived their lives like everybody else.
Now, today's challenges we must face: voting, education, all of the economic woes, and the saving of the social safety net in this country. That's what the Urban League is about. That's why you must be involved. But let me tell you something else: we've got to also deal with the internal problems in our own community. We have the issues of what others do to us, but then we've got the issues of what we are doing to each other—the self-destruction, the internal fracticide, and suicide in our community.
While young people are growing up feeling that Blackness is about being a thug and a hood, if you study our history from slavery, we always aspired to be learned and educated. What did they do in slavery? They made it against the law for us to read and write, and if whites were caught teaching us, they were punished. So, we always aspired to be more and learned.
When we got out of slavery and into reconstruction, when we couldn't go to white Ivy League schools, we built our own historic Black colleges. We built Howard, we built Tuskegee—all the way through into '54, the first major Civil Rights victory, Brown versus the Board of Education, all the way into the 21st century. Now we get here, and we're going to decide we don't want to be educated anymore; we're going to be hoodlums and thugs.
Our two daughters in their 20s, their generation is told if you speak eloquently, if you're well-read, if you act refined, you're acting white. So then, what is Blackness? To act like a hoodlum? To be inarticulate and dumb? We cannot let this generation turn around what the definition of Blackness [Applause] [Music] is and where man is in the culture.
I talk about it with some of my friends in hip-hop. I talk about it everywhere I go. Not all hip-hop is bad, but some of this stuff has to be challenged. I mean, we came out a few years ago and said we have to ban the N-word. Some of my friends got mad. "You can't ban the N-word!" I said, "It's bad. We've all used it, but it gives a wrong self-definition; it's a wrong self-image."
We cannot let our children grow up thinking that they are nothing, because once you adjust to being nothing, people can do anything to you because you accept that you're nothing in the first place. No, we are. I don't care what you say; we got free speech. I said, "No, you don't."
"What do you mean we don't?" I said, "If you go in a studio, I want y'all to think about this: if you go to a studio and you cut any CD that offends anybody but us, they won't put it out. If you cut a CD against Irish, it's hate speech; they won't put it out, and they shouldn't. You make a CD against Italians, it's hate speech; they won't put it out, and they shouldn't. Make it against Jews, it's hate speech; they won't put it out, and they shouldn't. Make it against gays, it's hate speech; they won't put it out, and they shouldn't.
So, let me get this right: anti-Irish hate speech, anti-Italian hate speech, anti-Jewish hate speech, anti-gay hate speech—called Blacks free speech? I kept trying to reason with him. I said, "Brother, we've all used it, but we need to stop doing that. We got to build pride; we have to build a self-image."
So, we went about two hours. Finally, I gave up; he gave up, and we parted our ways. I was on the road about a week later, I picked up the paper, and he'd been arrested in some altercation, some fight or something. I read the article, kept going. About three days later, they called me from the National Action Network headquarters, said he was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. I said, "All right, put him through to my cell phone." They plugged him through.
I said, "How you doing, man?" He said, "I ain't doing too good." I said, "Yeah, I heard you had a problem." "Yeah, man, I got busted." I said, "Well, what did they do?" He said, "Yeah, they busted me." I said, "Yeah, well, let me know whatever I can do to help you out." He said, "I need your help." I said, "You need my help?" "Yeah, I need your help." I said, "What do you need me to do?" He said, "They violated my civil rights." I told him, "Ain't got no civil rights."
How you define yourself is how you can find yourself. And let me say this; I know we got to go, but let me say this: we all should leave here not just talking about the community gathered, packed house. Now, you ought to leave here making a personal inventory on yourself. What are you going to do to act now?
We are great at what everybody else does. "This guy ain't that; this lead ain't that." What about you, Pastor? Man, let me tell you the hardest job—I'm going to let out a trade secret—the hardest job for a Black preacher is to preach the funeral of an irrelevant [Music] Negro. That's a hard job. Preachers don't like to tell you that, but I'm going to tell you. They roll the body down the middle, laying out here in front of the altar, family up on the front row crying and carrying on, and we're supposed to get up here and hallucinate a life for you that you never lived.
I mean, most folks shouldn't even have a funeral. Most folks should go straight from the mall to the cemetery because you ain't done nothing. Nobody can say nothing about you. You know, I did Michael Jackson's funeral; I did his memorial service and did the eulogy at his burial. I never forget that night we were coming out of the cemetery. A very well-known HST—if I call his name, you'd all know him—he stopped me. He said, "R, I said yes." He said, "You really moved me with that eulogy." I said, "Well, thank you." He said, "No, no, no, you really touched me." I said, "Well, thank you." He said, "If I go first, I want you to preach a eulogy like that for me." I told him, "Well, you're going to have to give me something to work [Applause] with."
You should ask yourself every day, "If this is my last day, if I don't see tomorrow, what can they say about me? What has my life meant? What purpose have I served? What have I done that mattered more than me?" All you live to get is a nice house, a nice car—that won't matter two minutes after you're gone. We'll sell your house, and we'll ride all over Virginia in your car. The only thing that will matter is if some child could say you taught them something, if some community group could say you made a difference. [Music] [Applause] [Music]
And if you are here tonight and ask yourself, "What am I doing?" If you're not satisfied with your own answer, then you need to leave here tonight determined to work with us to make a difference on these issues in our community—not for the Urban League, but for you, so that you have some value and some meaning in your life.
Now, a lot of people say, "You don't understand; I ain't got the ability others got." It doesn't matter. Everybody has something. God gave everybody some unique gift that they can do. You may not be able to do what I do, but I can't do what you do. You find your niche and you work out your own soul salvation, and don't let nobody tell you what you can't do.
The reason you don't believe it is because you don't have what our ancestors had, and that is they stretched out. The thing that we missed—and I'll close on this—is we have allowed others to set our limitations. I told President Obama I love this book, "The Audacity of Hope." He got it from one of Rev. Wright's sermons. But the fact is that we've made it as a hopeful people. All my life, I believed in hope. But the older I get, the more I live to see some things can happen where your hopes will be dashed.
There are areas and situations where hope will run out. But I'm glad if Rev. Wright introduced it to me. I'm glad my mother raised me in the church because there's another gear in my spiritual transmission that when hope runs out, I can go to faith. Because faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Faith is when the doctors give up, but you hold on for another doctor. Faith is when you got a pile of bills and no money, but you say, "He will provide all of my needs."
Faith is when your friends walk out, when your loved ones don't know your name, when your family turns their back, but you say, "I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me." Now, we come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in His holy word. He never, He never, He never failed us yet. Thank you, God.
Good evening, good evening, good evening. Let's give Reverend Sharpton another round of applause! If you're not fired up after that, then you need to go have a tuna somewhere because this message was a powerful, powerful one.
And I'm so delighted, on behalf of the Urban League of Hampton Roads, our board of directors, our staff, our guild, and our volunteers, to present this token of appreciation to you, Reverend Sharpton, for coming. You know, last week when you received the BET Humanitarian Award, you said, "Call me the ambulance because I'll come where needed." Well, you came tonight; you delivered. You stood and you gave us a message that was strong, that was pertinent, and that was powerful. Thank you so much.
My message is that I would hope that we could inspire people to become more active. I think that the election this year is critical. The moves to suppress the vote have been an impediment to that. Virginia is one of those states, and I wanted to encourage people to come out and vote and understand that even with these new laws, we've got to do what we've got to do to make sure people can come out.
I wanted to also express to them that we are facing many issues in and outside the community. We've got problems with our economy, we have problems in terms of the trickle-down economic theories that are being perpetrated, we have problems in our schools, but we also have problems with crime and things that we're doing to one another.
So, if I could inspire anybody tonight to get active and involved, then I fulfill my purpose. Exactly. The paradox is that we have, for the first time in the history of this country, a Black president and a Black attorney general, but we have this underpinning of crime and thugism.
So, what I want to challenge them is that we cannot have this imbalance of such great achievements and such great decay at the bottom at the same time. A lot of that is where we invest our resources, and a lot of that is where we try to define ourselves. Our young people—if our young people grow up thinking that being a hoodlum and a thug is the definition of Blackness, where are we going to get the next Obama from? Where are we going to get the next Eric Holder from?
So, we can't reach such a peak and ignore what's going on on the ground and say that the soil to produce the future is being eroded and corrupted.
We're here with the new drilling guide. What is your take on candidate Romney refusing to release his taxes? What do you think about that?
I think that the issue is that Romney said himself that he's a job creator. "Look at what I did at Bain Capital." So, we start looking there, and when we look there, we find out he had foreign investments in Switzerland and Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. We find that he said he left Bain, but he was signed in as CEO until 2001, and there were companies bought that were laying off workers. There were companies bought that were outsourcing jobs.
Now he's saying, "Well, don't look at Bain." Well, you were the one who told us to look at Bain. He could have told us to look at his four years as governor of Massachusetts; he didn't. Now, the tax release would show us what he did. How much money did you make with these foreign investments? Did you pay taxes, or did you use them as a foreign tax haven to not have to pay?
So, the reason that the release of the taxes becomes important is that it will define how he conducted business, what he did at Bain, and he told us to look at that to know what kind of president he would be. So, be careful what you ask for.
Brandy, single new J Guide newspaper, on behalf of the New Journal Guide family, Reverend, we want to thank you for coming to Virginia today. In closing, do you have any final words you would like to say to the people of Hampton?
I think that it is imperative that we are all actively involved, especially in this election year. We must vote; we must get our families out to vote. We must get the ID straight, and we must work with our young people—not to condemn them, but to help turn them around.
I think we should be working with the Urban League on these training programs and these things that will build in the community. I think that we ought to be reading and dealing with journals like yours so that we understand the sober issues in our community and not just become inundated with entertainment.
We know more about what a rapper is doing than we know what we're doing in our own homes. I think that we've got to become more sober and serious about what we're doing. Thank you. [Music]