Thank you! Thank you all so much.
It's great to be here with all of you. I'm looking out at the audience and seeing so many familiarfaces, as well as those here up on the dais.
I want to thank Kevin for his introduction and his leadership of this organization.
Mayor Lee, thanks for having us in your beautiful city.
It is for me a great treat to come back to address a group that, as you just heard, I spent a lotof time as senator working with – in great measure because of the need for buttressingHomeland Security, as well as other challenges within our cities during the eight years I servedin the Senate.
And it was always refreshing to come here because despite whatever was going on in Congressor Washington with respect to partisanship, a conference of mayors was truly like an oasis inthe desert. I could come here and be reminded of what Mayor LaGuardia said, "There's noRepublican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage. You pick it up, or you don't pick it up."And I loved being with people who understood that.
I've learned over the years how important it is to work with city hall, to try to make sure we areconnected up as partners and to get whatever the priorities of your people happen to beaccomplished.
So it pays. It pays to work with you, and I am grateful to have this opportunity to come backand see you.
When I was Senator from New York, I not only worked with the mayor of New York City, ofcourse, I worked with creative and committed mayors from Buffalo to Rochester to Syracuseto Albany and so many other places.
And I was particularly happy to do so because they were always full of ideas and eager to worktogether to attract more high-paying jobs, to revitalize downtowns, to support our firstresponders, to try to close that skills gap.
And I want you to be sure of this, whether you are a Democrat, a Republican or anIndependent: If I am president, America's mayors will always have a friend in the White House.
Now, as I was preparing to come here, I couldn't help but think of some of those who aren'twith us today.
Tom Menino was a dear friend to me, and to many in this room, and I certainly feel his loss.
Today, our thoughts are also with our friend Joe Riley and the people of Charleston. Joe's a goodman and a great mayor, and his leadership has been a bright light during such a dark time.
You know, the passing of days has not dulled the pain or the shock of this crime. Indeed, as wehave gotten to know the faces and names and stories of the victims, the pain has onlydeepened.
Nine faithful women and men, with families and passions and so much left to do.
As a mother, a grandmother, a fellow human being, my heart is bursting for them. For thesevictims and their families. For a wounded community and a wounded church. For our countrystruggling once again to make sense of violence that is fundamentally senseless, and historywe desperately want to leave behind.
Yesterday was Juneteenth, a day of liberation and deliverance. One-hundred and fifty years ago,as news of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation spread from town to town across theSouth, free men and women lifted their voices in song and prayer.
Congregations long forced to worship underground, like the first Christians, joyfullyresurrected their churches.
In Charleston, the African Methodist Episcopal Church took a new name: Emanuel. "God is withus."
Faith has always seen this community through, and I know it will again.
Just as earlier generations threw off the chains of slavery and then segregation and Jim Crow,this generation will not be shackled by fear and hate.
On Friday, one by one, grieving parents and siblings stood up in court and looked at that youngman, who had taken so much from them, and said: "I forgive you."
In its way, their act of mercy was more stunning than his act of cruelty.
It reminded me of watching Nelson Mandela embrace his former jailers because, he said, hedidn't want to be imprisoned twice, once by steel and concrete, once by anger and bitterness.
In these moments of tragedy, many of us struggle with how to process the rush of emotions.
I'd been in Charleston that day. I'd gone to a technical school, Trident Tech. I had seen thejoy, the confidence and optimism of young people who were now serving apprenticeships withlocal businesses, Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, every background. I listened to their stories, Ishook their hands, I saw the hope and the pride.
And then by the time I got to Las Vegas, I read the news.
Like many of you, I was so overcome: How to turn grief, confusion into purpose and action?But that's what we have to do.
For me and many others, one immediate response was to ask how it could be possible that weas a nation still allow guns to fall into the hands of people whose hearts are filled with hate.
You can't watch massacre after massacre and not come to the conclusion that, as PresidentObama said, we must tackle this challenge with urgency and conviction.
Now, I lived in Arkansas and I represented Upstate New York. I know that gun ownership ispart of the fabric of a lot of law-abiding communities.
But I also know that we can have commonsense gun reforms that keep weapons out of thehands of criminals and the violently unstable, while respecting responsible gun owners.
What I hope with all of my heart is that we work together to make this debate less polarized,less inflamed by ideology, more informed by evidence, so we can sit down across the table,across the aisle from one another, and find ways to keep our communities safe while protectingconstitutional rights.
It makes no sense that bipartisan legislation to require universal background checks wouldfail in Congress, despite overwhelming public support.
It makes no sense that we wouldn't come together to keep guns out of the hands of domesticabusers, or people suffering from mental illnesses, even people on the terrorist watch list. Thatdoesn't make sense, and it is a rebuke to this nation we love and care about.
The President is right: The politics on this issue have been poisoned. But we can't give up. Thestakes are too high. The costs are too dear.
And I am not and will not be afraid to keep fighting for commonsense reforms, and along withyou, achieve those on behalf of all who have been lost because of this senseless gun violencein our country.
But today, I stand before you because I know and you know there is a deeper challenge weface.
I had the great privilege of representing America around the world. I was so proud to shareour example, our diversity, our openness, our devotion to human rights and freedom. Thesequalities have drawn generations of immigrants to our shores, and they inspire people still. Ihave seen it with my own eyes.
And yet, bodies are once again being carried out of a Black church.
Once again, racist rhetoric has metastasized into racist violence.
Now, it's tempting, it is tempting to dismiss a tragedy like this as an isolated incident, tobelieve that in today's America, bigotry is largely behind us, that institutionalized racism nolonger exists.
But despite our best efforts and our highest hopes, America's long struggle with race is far fromfinished.
I know this is a difficult topic to talk about. I know that so many of us hoped by electing ourfirst Black president, we had turned the page on this chapter in our history.
I know there are truths we don't like to say out loud or discuss with our children. But we haveto. That's the only way we can possibly move forward together.
Race remains a deep fault line in America. Millions of people of color still experience racism intheir everyday lives.
Here are some facts.
In America today, Blacks are nearly three times as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage.
In 2019, the median wealth of Black families was around $11,000. For white families, it wasmore than $134,000.
Nearly half of all Black families have lived in poor neighborhoods for at least two generations,compared to just 7 percent of white families.
African American men are far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged withcrimes, and sentenced to longer prison terms than White men, 10 percent longer for the samecrimes in the federal system.
In America today, our schools are more segregated than they were in the 1960s.
How can any of that be true? How can it be true that Black children are 500 percent more likelyto die from asthma than white kids? Five hundred percent!
More than a half century after Dr. King marched and Rosa Parks sat and John Lewis bled, afterthe Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and so much else, how can any of these things betrue? But they are.
And our problem is not all kooks and Klansman. It's also in the cruel joke that goesunchallenged. It's in the off-hand comments about not wanting "those people" in theneighborhood.
Let's be honest: For a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a youngBlack man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear. And news reports about poverty and crimeand discrimination evoke sympathy, even empathy, but too rarely do they spur us to actionor prompt us to question our own assumptions and privilege.
We can't hide from any of these hard truths about race and justice in America. We have toname them and own them and then change them.
You may have heard about a woman in North Carolina named Debbie Dills. She's the one whospotted Dylann Roof's car on the highway. She could have gone on about her business. Shecould have looked to her own safety. But that's not what she did. She called the police and thenshe followed that car for more than 30 miles.
As Congressman Jim Clyburn said the other day, "There may be a lot of Dylann Roofs in theworld, but there are a lot of Debbie Dills too. She didn't remain silent."
Well, neither can we. We all have a role to play in building a more tolerant, inclusive society,what I once called "a village," where there is a place for everyone.
You know, we Americans may differ and bicker and stumble and fall, but we are at our bestwhen we pick each other up, when we have each other's back.
Like any family, our American family is strongest when we cherish what we have in common,and fight back against those who would drive us apart.
Mayors are on the front lines in so many ways. We look to you for leadership in time of crisis.We look to you every day to bring people together to build stronger communities.
Many mayors are part of the U.S. Coalition of Cities against Racism and Discrimination,launched by this conference in 2019. I know you're making reforms in your own communities,promoting tolerance in schools, smoothing the integration of immigrants, creating economicopportunities.
Mayors across the country also are doing all they can to prevent gun violence and keep ourstreets and neighborhoods safe.
And that's not all. Across our country, there is so much that is working. It's easy to forget thatwhen you watch or read the news. In cities and towns from coast to coast, we are seeingincredible innovation. Mayors are delivering results with what Franklin Roosevelt called boldand persistent experimentation.
Here in San Francisco, Mayor Lee is expanding a workforce training program for residents ofpublic housing, helping people find jobs who might have spent time in prison or lost theirdriver's license or fallen behind in child support payments.
South of here in Los Angeles and north in Seattle, city governments are raising the minimumwage so more people who work hard can get ahead and support their families.
In Philadelphia, Mayor Nutter is pioneering a new approach to community policing to rebuildtrust and respect between law enforcement and communities of color.
In Houston, Louisville and Chicago, the mayors are finding new ways to help workers train andcompete for jobs in advanced industries.
Cities like Cleveland and Lexington are linking up their universities and their factories to spur arevival of manufacturing.
In Denver and Detroit, city leaders are getting creative about how they raise funds forbuilding and repairing mass transit.
Providence is helping parents learn how to become their children's first teachers, and spendmore time reading, talking, and singing to their babies at critical stages of early braindevelopment.
Kevin Johnson, who has led both Sacramento and this conference so ably, calls thisrenaissance of urban innovation "Cities 3.0," and talks about "open-source leadership" andmayors as pragmatic problem-solvers.
That's what we need more of in America.
And Kevin is right, we need to reimagine the relationship between the federal government andour metropolitan areas. Top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions rarely work.
We need what I'll call a new Flexible Federalism that empowers and connects communities,leverages their unique advantages, adapts to changing circumstances. And I look forward toworking with all of you to turn this vision into a reality.
I've put Four Fights at the center of my campaign:
First, to build an economy for tomorrow not yesterday;
Second, to strengthen America's families, the foundation of everything we are;
Third, to harness all of our power, our smarts, and our values to continue to lead the world;
And fourth, to revitalize our democracy back here at home.
Mayors are vital for all four of these efforts. You know what it takes to make governmentactually work, and you know it can make a real difference in people's lives.
But you also know that government alone does not have the answers we seek. If we are going tore-stitch the fraying fabric of our communities, all Americans are going to have to step up.There are laws we should pass and programs we should fund and fights we should wage andwin.
But so much of the real work is going to come around kitchen tables and over bedtime stories,around office watercoolers and in factory break rooms, at quiet moments in school and at work,in honest conversations between parents and children, between friends and neighbors.
Because fundamentally, this is about the habits of our hearts, how we treat each other, how welearn to see the humanity in those around us, no matter what they look like, how theyworship, or who they love. Most of all, it's about how we teach our children to see thathumanity too.
Andy Young is here, and I want to tell a story about him because I think it's as timely today asit was all those years ago.
You know, at the end of the 1950s the South was beginning to find its way into the moderneconomy. It wasn't easy. There were determined leaders in both government and businessthat wanted to raise the standard of living and recruit businesses, make life better.
When the closing of Central High School in Little Rock happened, and President Eisenhower hadto send in federal troops to keep peace, that sent a message of urgency but also opportunity.
I remember Andy coming to Little Rock some years later, and saying that in Atlanta when folkssaw what was going on in Little Rock and saw some of the continuing resistance to enforcingcivil rights laws, opening up closed doors, creating the chance for Blacks and whites to studytogether, to work together, to live together, Atlanta made a different decision.
The leadership of Atlanta came together, looked out across the South and said, "Some place inthe South is really going to make it big. We need to be that place." And they adopted a slogan, "the city too busy to hate."
Well, we need to be cities, states and a country too busy to hate. We need to get about thework of tearing down the barriers and the obstacles, roll up our sleeves together, look at what'sworking across our country, and then share it and scale it.
As all of us reeled from the news in Charleston this past week, a friend of mine shared thisobservation with a number of us. Think about the hearts and values of those men and womenof Mother Emanuel, he said.
"A dozen people gathered to pray. They're in their most intimate of communities and astranger who doesn't look or dress like them joins in. They don't judge. They don't question.They don't reject. They just welcome. If he's there, he must need something: prayer, love,community, something. During their last hour, nine people of faith welcomed a stranger inprayer and fellowship."
For those of us who are Christians, we remember the words of the scripture: "I was hungry andyou gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomedme."
That's humanity at its best. That's also America at its best. And that's the spirit we need tonurture our lives and our families and our communities.
I know it's not usual for somebody running for president to say what we need more of in thiscountry is love and kindness. But that's exactly what we need more of.
We need to be not only too busy to hate but too caring, too loving to ignore, to walk away, togive up.
Part of the reason I'm running for president is I love this country. I am so grateful for each andevery blessing and opportunity I've been given.
I did not pick my parents. I did not decide before I arrived that I would live in a middle classfamily in the middle of America, be given the opportunity to go to good public schools withdedicated teachers and a community that supported me and all of the other kids.
I came of age at a time when barriers were falling for women, another benefit.
I came of age as the Civil Rights movement was beginning to not only change laws but changehearts.
I've seen the expansion of not just rights but opportunities to so many of our fellow men andwomen who had been left out and left behind.
But we have unfinished business. And I am absolutely confident and optimistic we can getthat done.
I stand here ready to work with each and every one of you to support your efforts, to stand withyou, to put the task of moving beyond the past at the head of our national agenda. I'm excitedabout what we can accomplish together.
I thank you for what you've already done and I look forward to all that you will be doing in thefuture.
Thank you. God bless you, and God bless America.