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Hope in the face of difficulty. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren. And when one of his chief advisors - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners." You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq. America, this is one of those moments.
Tonight is a particular honor for me because - let's face it - my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
People are coming together around a simple truth - that we are all connected, that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper. I've seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.
And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world war must be an option sometimes, but it should never be the first option. That's not what I'm talking about. Because we all have the capacity to do justice and show mercy; to treat others with dignity and respect; and to rise above what divides us and come together to meet those challenges we can't meet alone. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America. It's time for us to change America.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. And Ashley asks him why he's there. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time. The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away.
Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.