Early this evening over a hundred indivuduals gathered at a winery across from the balloon field in Indianola, Iowa to hear from Senator Cory Booker (D), a candidate for President in 2020.
Senator Cory Booker (D)
Senator Cory Booker (D): …So, I want to end by telling you hope, and why this has been two of the most hopeful years of my life. Because hope is the active conviction that despair will not have the last word. When there was the Muslim ban I, I ran out to Dulles Airport because I was a lawyer and I heard that they were detaining people without access to lawyers. And I got to Dulles Airport and the concourse was full of one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen as an American. Hundreds and hundreds of Americans piling into that concourse demanding justice, demanding the release of detained people. And every time a Muslim family not from this country emerged out of the gate everybody erupted into songs. Singing patriotic songs. There were guys with yarmulkes…cheering Muslims coming off a plane. That’s America. [….] Hope is the active conviction that despair will not have the last word. [….][after the inauguration] …And so I went home that night, and I’m telling the truth, I’m being seduced by despair now, I curl up in a ball and I’ve got a headache, I’m worrying. And the next morning I wake up to a chorus of Miss Virginia Jones’s, millions of women from coast to coast, said to me, Cory, despair will not have the last word. I’m bringing the hope. Hate won’t have the last word, I’m bringing the love. Sexism won’t have the last word, I’m bringing the equality. They said to me, Cory Booker, as if they were pointing to me…this is not a time to curl up, it’s not a time to shut up, it’s definitely not a time to give up. It’s time to get up. It’s time to rise up. It’s time to speak up. And so I ask you all right now, in this moral moment in our country what will we do? Each and every one of us has the power to make change in greater ways than we think. We’re stronger than we know. We’re more beautiful than we realize.[….] This is a moment now where we need the best of who we are. We need our traditions, the ones that go back to Birmingham, Selma. The ones that go back to Stonewall. And Seneca. When American gathered together and said our country is going wrong we’re going to make it right. I want to ask everybody in this room right now. I want you to caucus for me, but whatever you do, between now and six hundred days from now, what ever you do, don’t let this election be small. Don’t let it be about just one man and one office. Don’t let it be just about what you’re against. Let this be the moment in American history that we can again revive ideals of civic grace. That we call upon our neighbors to have a more courageous empathy for those people who are hurting, those people who are left out, those people who can’t afford their healthcare, those people who are getting starved in public education. Let this be a moment where we not just show courageous empathy, but we revive ideals of love and seek a loving community. If we can make this a big election, a big moment for America, yeah, we’re in the pit but we can go to the palace.[….] Well, it’s time for this generation to dream again. Dream that we can save this planet from peril. Dream that we can have cathedrals of learning for our kids. Dream that we can have healthcare for all. It’s time for defiant dreams.
Daring dreams. And bold dreams. And if we dream together, and work together, and struggle together, and turn common pain into common purpose I promise you, we won’t just elect a new president in the White House, we will as a whole, as a nation, we will rise. Thank you.
