For the Record.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean Addresses NAACP Annual Convention
Washington, DC - DNC Chairman Howard Dean today addressed the NAACP 2005 Annual Convention in Milwaukee. The following are excerpts from his remarks:
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to talk to you, it is a great honor.
Over 200 years ago, Thomas Paine wrote about the Revolutionary War that "these are the times that try men's souls." He wrote that in a pamphlet called "The Crisis." Sounds familiar doesn't it?
...The horrible events in London are yet another reminder that we do indeed live in soul trying times. But these are precisely the times when good people, all of us, are required to do more - when we are required to stand up as the NAACP has done for more than 95 years.
I'm here to tell you that the Democratic Party is going to stand up for the things we believe in. We're going to stand for social justice. We'll never take a single African American vote for granted. We're going to show up now, not eight weeks before an election. And we're going to put organizers in all 50 states.
For more than 95 years, you have been the conscience of our nation, and the message of your work is a powerful one - when we come together around shared goals and common principles, great things are possible. Historic things are possible. People of all races, nationalities and faiths have united in the NAACP on a fundamental premise - that all men and women are created equal.
The Democratic Party shares this mission, and we share common goals in the fight for fairness and equality for every one. We believe that everyone is equal in the eyes of God...
I met with a group of young African American business leaders, we talked about economic opportunity, the difficulty of raising children, ensuring that there are good schools for their kids - this is the new struggle for civil rights. It is not water fountains or seats on the bus. It is equal opportunity for your small business, economic equality, equal access to schools and highly qualified teachers. It is health care, equal opportunity for a mortgage to buy a home for your family, and it is the promise of retiring with dignity after a life of hard work.
And you know, the water fountains and seats on the bus were really about those things too...
It is no coincidence that the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus are all Democrats--because the Democratic Party remains the party of opportunity...
It is a moral value to balance the budget. It's a moral value not to leave massive debt to our children and grandchildren...
It's a moral value to ensure basic economic security for every family. It's not acceptable that hard working people, some working two jobs, live one paycheck away from financial disaster, or don't have health care, or have to choose between sending their child to college or caring for their elderly parents...
It is a moral value to expand economic opportunity, create good paying jobs and keep them here in America, not ship them to China. We need to increase the minimum wage so that Americans can earn a decent living...
We need a foreign policy that restores our moral authority in the world. When we send young men and women to war, it must be for the right reasons and they must have the proper equipment. But America is not going to be defended simply by having a strong military. We also need to have high moral purpose.
We must focus on the threats of today, and the threats of tomorrow. We need an energy policy that reduces our dependence on foreign oil...
We need a health care system that works for everyone. It is unacceptable that we are the only industrialized nation that doesn't ensure access to affordable health care for every American. If Japan, Switzerland, England, and Canada can provide health care, we should be able to...
We need to reform our education system. We cannot just have No Child Left Behind and leave the money behind too...
We need to reform our election system. I know Donna Brazille was here earlier this week to talk to you about our Ohio report. I'm not here to look backward, but to look forward. But the truth is, our election system failed the citizens of Ohio in 2004, and failed African Americans who had to wait three times as long to cast their vote, and failed young voters who were illegally asked for identification at the polls.
We need to make voting a federal right for all Americans. Voting isn't just a right, it's a responsibility...
We're not going to divide Americans to win elections. The Republican Party's "Southern Strategy" used in the 1960s and 1970s lives today. In 2000, they used the racially charged word "quota" to divide African Americans. In 2004, they used gay marriage. And just you wait; in 2006 its going to be immigrants. We need to stand together. We are all children of God, equal in the eyes of God. We need to stand up for social justice. The one thing the Democratic Party will never do - we will never divide Americans to win elections. We'll never do that...
When I was campaigning for President, there was a lady in New Jersey who helped us enormously. She raised a lot of money for us. One of the guests at one of her fundraisers was this woman's 30 year old daughter, who was a school teacher from Texas. We were talking about things and the separation of church and state came up. All of a sudden the woman from Texas popped up and said "Governor, I don't agree with you on that, I'm an evangelical Christian. We don't believe there ought to be separation of church and state. We believe this is a Christian nation." You could have heard a pin drop. Everybody was a little uncomfortable, so we changed the subject to something else and went on.
At the end of the evening I was saying goodbye to the guests. I asked her how it is that she happened to support me when she couldn't possibly agree with my views that a woman has the right to make up her own mind about her health care or that gays ought to have the same rights as everyone else.
She looked at me and said "we are deeply troubled by your views on gay rights and a woman's right to choose. But we support you for two reasons. The first reason is that our child has kidney disease and in Texas that means we cannot get health insurance for our child or for anybody in our family. We think everybody ought to have health insurance. But the real reason we support you is that evangelicals are people of deep conviction and you are a person of deep conviction. What we look at more than anything else is not if you will agree with every single one of our convictions, but - if something happens to our family or our community or our country - whether or not the people who are going to be making decisions affect us will make those decisions out of deep convictions, not based on focus groups."
...There is one thing that we must do: we must stand up, we must speak with conviction. Together we must stand up and stand together. To stand up for the least among us, to stand up for our children, our veterans, our communities, the very things that define who we are and what we believe.
Posted by Hannah at July 15, 2005 01:27 PM