Remarks to the AME Convention in Indianapolis

Thank you for inviting me to this extraordinary conference. And congratulations to all the newly elected Bishops. [Acknowledgements] I want you to know that I am proud to have a member of the AME Church as my head negotiator for the presidential debates. Vernon Jordan grew up in the St. Paul AME Church in Atlanta. He is currently a member of the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington D.C., and I value his support and counsel in this campaign.

Before I begin, I want to make sure you all caught up to an announcement I made this morning in Pittsburgh. As I hope you know by now, I was proud to announce my Vice Presidential running mate. I have chosen a man who understands and defends the values of America, a man who has shown courage and conviction as a champion for middle class Americans and those struggling to reach the middle class – a man who has shown guts, determination and political skill in his own race for the Presidency – a man whose life has prepared him for leadership and whose character brings him to exercise it. And if by some chance you haven't heard it, I am pleased to announce that the next Vice President of the United States will be Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

Your lives speak volumes: While America is a land of tolerance for every belief, it can never be a place of indifference to faith. We should never separate our highest beliefs and values from our treatment of one another and our conduct of the people's business.

That is what I want to talk with you about today. America needs a new era of responsibility. And those of us in leadership would do well to follow your lead.

We can learn much about economic development, self-help and personal responsibility from the good work being done by Rev. Floyd Flake in New York and Rev. Cecil Murray in Los Angeles. We can be inspired by the work to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and house the homeless that is being done by Rev. Walter Walters of St. Paul AME right here in Indianapolis. These are just a few examples of the AME commitment to taking responsibility and expanding the church beyond its walls into the lives of people in need in neighborhoods and communities all over this nation.

Scripture teaches us: "It is not enough, my brother, to say you have faith, when there are no deeds... Faith without works is dead."

Your faith is alive, but when I look around this city – when I look around neighborhoods and towns and cities all across this country, I see what so many of you see everyday.

We see jobs to be created.

We see families to house.

We see violence to stop.

We see children to teach – and children to care for.

We see too many people without health care and too many people of color suffering and dying from preventable diseases like cancer and AIDS and diabetes.

We look at what is happening in America today and we say: Where are the deeds? For the last four years all we have heard is empty words.

Well, let me tell you something. I am running for president because it's time to turn the words into deeds, and faith into action. I believe that talk is cheap. It is time to back up our words with action. And, as president, that is just what I am going to do.

Forty years ago, last week, that question was answered when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. But even though the bill was signed at the White House, Dr. King and others understood that "it was written in the streets of America"...by the foot soldiers in the sweltering heat of Birmingham and around this nation who put their bodies into the crucible of hate so we would all see a better day.

They didn't wait for anyone to give them permission. They saw a problem. They took responsibility for fixing it. And they changed the inner life of America forever.

Today, we have an Administration in Washington that looks at the challenges we face here at home and around the world and says this is the best we can do. They say this is the best economy of our lifetimes. They have even called us pessimists for speaking truth to power. Well, I say the most pessimistic thing you can say is that America can't do better.

Don't tell us disenfranchising a million African Americans and stealing their votes is the best we can do. This time, in 2004, not only will every vote count – we're going to make sure that every vote is counted.

Don't tell us 1.8 million lost jobs is the best we can do, when we can create millions of new jobs. We can do better...and we will.

Don't tell us unemployment is not a problem anymore, when we see that African American unemployment is now above 10 percent – double the rate for whites. We can do better...and we will.

Don't tell us overcrowded schools and underpaid teachers are the best we can do. We have the means to give all our children a first-rate education. We can do better...and we will.

Don't' tell us $2 a gallon at the pump is the best we can do. We have the technology to make America energy independent of Mideast oil. We can do better...and we will.

Don't tell us in the richest country in the world, that we can't do better than 44 million people uninsured. We can do better...and we will.

Don't tell us that it takes four years of rhetoric about AIDS in Africa and African development to get something done. As president, I will fully fund the fight against AIDS in Africa and make sustainable development on the continent a priority.

There are so many issues that call us to put our faith into action. And let me tell you there are two priorities that leap out at us if we are going to change the direction of our country. We have to make sure that fathers are there for the children they help bring into this world and we have to close the divisions between the two Americas – the haves and the have nots; the people who can do and the people who they just won't let do.

As you all know, over the course of my life, I have been a soldier, a prosecutor and a Senator. And I have always tried to give my best. But there is no job that has taught me more or been tougher, or more rewarding than being a father to my two daughters, Vanessa and Alexandra. Fatherhood is not an exact science and we all make mistakes. But I am convinced that every father can be a good father, if he loves his children, respects their mother and does all he can to support them.

Here is what fatherhood has taught me.

Children need the love and discipline of fathers as much as they need it from mothers.

Children need to get their role models at home – not from the media.

Fathers need to show their children, particularly their sons, that raising a baby, not making a baby is what makes you a man.

We can help more fathers make the right decision by finishing the job of welfare reform. It's brought millions of mothers into the workplace already, and that's a good thing. But mothers shouldn't bear the whole burden alone.

We need to offer the same approach to dads – offering opportunities for training and jobs, but also demanding the responsibilities we ask of every parent, including work and child support.

And I invite churches and faith-based institutions to continue to play the role they have always played – as leaders, teachers, and guides in our communities. I know there are some who say that the First Amendment means faith-based organizations can't help government. I think they are wrong. I want to offer support for your efforts, including financial support, in a way that supports our Constitution and civil rights laws and values the role of faith in inspiring countless acts of justice and mercy across our land.

I see what you see everyday. When I was a prosecutor, I used to talk to the kids in trouble who came before me. I wanted to learn about their lives. There wasn't one of those kids I met who didn't come from a neglected home, a background of abuse, poverty or awful violence. And too many of them had no one to call father. I believe we have to stop being a country content with spending $50-$70 thousand dollars a year to send a kid to prison for life, when we could spend $10-$11 thousand to give a child a Head Start, a Healthy Start, an Early Start. We need to increase our support for programs like Youth Build which offers training, education and the opportunity for service to thousands of young people so they can get good jobs and become responsible parents and citizens.

In short, we need to help our children at the front end of their lives so we won't have to pick up the pieces on the downside.

But we also need to teach the lesson of responsibility, which is what you do everyday. All of us have to be responsible for our actions, from the President in the White House to people in their homes and schools and workplaces across this country. And we owe it to all the people who follow the law to hold accountable those who don't.

Let's not kid ourselves. In the end, government can't raise our children. It's up to each of us to teach our children good values, to always be there for them, and to make sure they learn right from wrong.

That is part of my vision for a stronger America here at home.

Dr. King reminded us that "Human progress never rolls on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men [and women] willing to be co-workers with God..." Dr. King was calling us to take responsibility.

Several months ago, President Clinton quoted the prophet Isaiah in support of my candidacy. "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying...Whom shall I send. And who will go for us. And I said, ‘Here I am. Send me.'"

President Clinton paid me the compliment of telling that audience whenever there was a call to service in war or in peace, I have always answered that call.

Today I say, when we look at the problems of this present age, we must all answer, "Send me."

With one clear voice, we must all say: Send me to fight for good-paying jobs that let American families actually get ahead – an America where the middle class is doing better, not being squeezed.

Send me to make it clear that health care is a right, not a privilege in America, reserved only for the wealthy or the elected or the connected.

Send me to fight for a good education for all our children with funding that truly leaves no child behind.

Send me to alleviate poverty and hopelessness wherever they exist in America.

Send me to make this nation energy independent so that no young American in uniform is ever held hostage to our dependence on Mideast oil.

Send me to build a strong military, and lead strong alliances, so young Americans are never put in harm's way because we needlessly insisted on going it alone.

My friends, we can create an America stronger at home and respected in the world if we put aside our divisions and come together in common purpose. If we all answer the call by saying, "Send me." If we remember the words of your founder, Richard Allen, who said, "Skin may differ but ability dwells in black and white the same."

The only way to move this country forward is together. We must remember that the presidency is more than one person or even one party. The presidency embodies the hopes and dreams of every American. The presidency is the people.

When I was in Vietnam, I served on a small boat in the Mekong Delta with men who came from places as diverse as South Carolina and Iowa...Arkansas and California. We were literally all in the same boat – and we came together as one. No one asked us our politics. No one cared where we went to school or what our race or backgrounds were.

We were just a band of brothers who all fought under the same flag and all prayed to the same God. Today, we're a little bit older, we're a little bit greyer. But we still know how to fight for our country. And what we're fighting for is an America where all of us are truly in the same boat.

In great movements for civil rights and equal rights, the environment and economic justice for all, we have come together as one America to give life our highest ideals. Scripture tells us there is "a time to break down and a time to build up." This is our time to break down division and build up unity. This is our time to reject the politics of fear. This is our time, as Langston Hughes so eloquently put it, to:

"Let America be America again...Let it be the dream it used to be...for those whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain must bring back our mighty dream again."

So, let us pray. Let us move our feet. Let us march together and let us lead America in a new direction – toward that mountaintop which has always been our destination. We won't get there in one year or one election. But this year is our time to let America be America again...to bring back our mighty dream.

Send me.

Thank you and God bless you all.