Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, South Carolina. Good afternoon. Please have a seat. It
is so good to be back.
It is so good to be back.
I want to thank Grace,
fellowship choir for lifting our hearts with your beautiful voices.
And I just want to thank all of the leaders who
are here for the work that you do every day.
Uh to Senator Devine.
I thank you for that beautiful introduction
and most of all for your courageous leadership.
And of course, all the history that you make every day.
Can we please applaud Senator Devine for her work
and her recent election
and to President Murphy and all the leaders of the South Carolina N A AC P.
Thank you for welcoming me today.
Yeah.
And of course, it is always an honor to be in the home state of assistant leader,
Jim Clyburn.
I do not need to tell South Carolina what a powerful leader he is.
And of course, he is one of the closest advisers and friends to President Joe Biden.
And to me
today, we celebrate
the legacy of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King junior,
a visionary
who saw what could be
unburdened by what had been
an organizer who moved the minds, the hearts
and the feet
of the American people,
a leader who dedicated his life.
And in the end gave his life to advance one of our nation's highest ideals.
The ideal
of freedom,
freedom
is fundamental
to the promise of America.
Freedom
is not to be given,
it is not to be bestowed.
It is ours by right.
And in many ways,
the story of America
has been a story
of our fight
to realize that promise
as Doctor King wrote
in the letter from Birmingham jail,
the goal of America is freedom.
And so
we gather
this afternoon to honor
his legacy.
And I therefore pose a question
that I do believe Dr
King would ask
today
in 2024
where exactly is America
in our fight for freedom?
How we doing?
Well as Vice President of the United States, I'd say
at this moment in America,
freedom
is under profound threat.
Today.
In fact, we are witnessing a full on attack
on hard fought,
hard won freedoms
consider
in states across our nation,
extremists attack the sacred freedom to vote.
They pass laws
to ban drop boxes, limit early voting
and restrict absentee ballots.
In Georgia,
extremists have the gall to pass a law to
even make it illegal to simply offer food and water
to people standing in line for hours to exercise
their basic civic duty.
I ask
the friends whatever happened to love thy neighbor.
The hypocrisy abounds.
And please note
the governor in Georgia signed that law on the
56th anniversary of the March from Selma to Montgomery.
Today
in states across our nation,
extremists
propose and pass laws to attack a woman's
freedom to make decisions about her own body
laws that would even
make no exception for rape and incest.
And let us all
agree.
One does not have to abandon their faith
and deeply held beliefs to agree.
The government should not be telling her what to do with her body.
Freedom.
Every person in our nation has a right
to live safe and to live free from the horror of gun violence.
And yet today,
these so-called leaders stand by and refuse to
pass reasonable gun safety laws to help protect
our Children
and places of worship.
Every person in our nation has a right to be who
they are and love who they love openly and with pride.
And yet this past year, extremist
have proposed or passed hundreds of laws targeting LGBT Q people.
Every person in our nation has a right to be free
to learn and acknowledge our country's true and full history.
And yet today,
extremists pass book bans,
book bands in this year of our Lord 2024.
And then
they even try to erase
overlook
and rewrite
the ugly parts of our past.
For example, the Civil War,
which
must I really have to say
was about slavery.
All the, while
they tell our Children
that enslaved people benefited from slavery,
they insult us in an attempt to gas light us
in an attempt to divide and distract our nation with unnecessary debates,
fundamental freedoms
under assault,
freedom from fear,
violence and harm freedom to vote, to live, to learn to control one's own body
and the freedom
to simply be
and understand the profound impact these attacks have had on the next generation
of leaders. So many of our young leaders are here. This afternoon.
This past fall,
I met with more than 15,000 young leaders in my fight for our freedoms college tour,
including
at the College of Charleston
from our young leaders.
I heard
that the assault on freedoms. Well,
it's a lived experience
is not just hypothetical,
think about it
during the height of their reproductive years.
This generation
has witnessed the highest court in our land,
the court of Thurgood
take a constitutional right that had been recognized
from the people of America, from the women of America.
This generation now has fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers.
That is not a hypothetical
that from kindergarten to 12th grade,
this young generation
has had to endure active shooter drills.
Our Children
who should be in a classroom,
fulfilling their God given potential
to explore the beauty of the world.
And instead have to worry that someone might
bust through their classroom door with a gun.
And when students go to vote,
they often have to wait in line for hours because of laws
that intentionally make it more difficult for them to cast a ballot.
It is not a hypothetical.
But even though
our young leaders are clear
eyed about these challenges,
I will share with you,
they will not be discouraged,
they will not be deterred,
standing on the shoulders of the generations who came before.
Our young leaders are prepared and ready for this fight.
As are we
six decades ago,
from the steps of the Lincoln memorial, Doctor King spoke to our nation
to the thousands of Americans who had marched
that day on Washington
and he spoke of what he called
a promissory note,
a check that had been signed to the American people
in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.
Doctor King's voice
rang out
when he quote said, we refuse to believe that the Bank of Justice is bankrupt.
So we've come to cash this check. He said
a check
that will give us upon demand,
the riches
of freedom
and the security
of justice.
And of course less than a year later
because of the movement
that Doctor King and so many other great American leaders helped to build
and sustain
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed. And
in the decades since inspired by the power and the purpose of that movement,
together, we have won many victories
to make our nation
more free,
more equal
and more just
from the passage of the Voting Rights Act
to yes
senator
to the appointment of the first black woman to serve on the highest court in our land.
So if he were here,
I think Doctor King would be the first to say
that. Yes,
we have come far
and though
we have come far
in this moment, it is up to us
to continue that fight
to cash
that promissory note.
And like Dr
King,
even through the struggles and the setbacks,
even during the pain and the heartbreak,
even when our feet grow weary
and our legs grow tired,
we will march
forward for freedom
because I do believe,
I do believe
the true power behind the promise
of America
is in the faith
of her people.
The promise of America,
I do believe
is in the faith
of the people,
our faith
in the founding principles of our nation,
in our profound commitment
to make those principles real
generation after generation
on the fields of Gettysburg
in the schools of Little Rock,
on the grounds of this statehouse,
on the streets of Ferguson
and on the floor of the Tennessee House of Representatives,
we the people
have always fought to make the promise of freedom real.
And so today,
we must do so.
Once again,
the great Coretta Scott King
once said,
freedom is never truly won,
you earn it
and win it
in every generation. And at this moment in history
at this moment in history.
In the relay race of history,
I say, then
let us not throw up our hands
because it's time to roll up our sleeves.
And we
were born for a time such as this
and so with faith,
with hope and optimism,
we will fight
and when we fight,
we win. May God bless you and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.