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Congressman Elijah
E. Cummings |
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Congressman Elijah
E. Cummings |
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February 24, 2002
Advance Text of Remarks
The Annual Conference of The Jewish Council for Public Affairs
Baltimore, Maryland
Good morning. Thank you, Alan Edelman, for your kind words of introduction -- and for all that you and Dr. Art Abramson are doing through the Baltimore Jewish Council.
Your work is very important to the strong, progressive movement that is so essential to the welfare of all of the people of our region.
Dr. David Luchans -- I was very pleased to learn that you would be offering your insightful commentary to this forum.
I must admit that when people used to ask me why Senator Moynihan was always so brilliant, I would give the Senator all of the credit -- even though I was well aware of your contributions to his work.
Perhaps we can encourage your return to Washington.
The Congress could use your wisdom during these very difficult times.
Ladies and gentlemen -- welcome to Baltimore. Personally -- and on behalf of my friend, Congressman Ben Cardin and our new House colleague, Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger -- I want to thank you and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs for choosing our home town for your annual conference this year. Your Chairman, Michael Bohnen, your Executive Director Hannah Rosenthal, Ms. Reva Price and your entire JCPA staff do an outstanding job keeping the Congress well informed.
Unfortunately, the theme that you have chosen for this year's plenum -- "Meeting the Challenge: Community Relations in Times of Turmoil" -- remains a subject of critical importance for all Americans.
Friends, I am honored to have these few moments in which to talk about our historic coalition.
That coalition has always been one of both self-interest and conscience.
Last year, in the letter that JPCA sent inviting me to speak today, I was moved by these words: "Our work, especially in matters relating to democratic pluralism and social justice, reflects the profound Jewish commitment to 'tikkun olam - the repair of the world.' It expresses the conviction of the organized Jewish community that it must be active in the effort to build a just society."
Friends, if any Americans doubted that our world is deeply in need of repair before September 11, those doubts have been pushed aside today.
The challenge for our time is one of determining what those repairs must be.
Even before September 11, most of us here this morning realized that our world was badly in need of repair -- that our world was not truly at peace.
I am not speaking only of the armed conflicts abroad. Nor do I base that conclusion only upon the hate crimes against Jewish and African Americans that continue to plague us here at home.
I am recalling Dr. King's insight about the foundations of peace. "Peace," he declared, "is more than the absence of tension. Peace is the presence of justice."
Dr. King's observation, I believe, has been a driving force behind your Council=s work over the years -- just as it has always been the intellectual and moral foundation of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Ours is a commonality of purpose, ladies and gentlemen, a bond that brings us together as people of conscience time and time again. This is the spirit in which I come before you today.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are three thoughts that I would like to leave with you this morning.
First, community-based initiatives like the youth program that we have created here in Baltimore strengthen the foundation of our coalition -- both now and for generations to come.
Second, we must honestly and effectively address the tensions that will continue to arise among us.
And third, we must not allow the American people to be misguided into believing that security and human rights are incompatible goals.
CREATING DIALOGUE AND OPENING HEARTS IN OUR DAILY LIVES
My friend, Stewart Greenebaum, loves to tell how his contact with former Texas Congressman Mickey Leland helped him to form his vision of connecting Baltimore young people with Israel.
His vision was to give inner city young people a closer, more personal understanding of our shared Judeo-Christian tradition of serving God through service to humanity.
Several years ago, Stewart decided to take action on this vision. He decide that action was required to create dialogue and open hearts.
I accepted his invitation to participate in this effort -- to work with him to transform this vision into our shared mission in life.
Our reasoning remains compelling today, ladies and gentlemen.
It is time for all of us -- children of the same God -- to put a stop to all of the killing that plagues the world. It is time for all of us to give living a fresh start.
Stewart Greenebaum reached out to me and to a number of other concerned people -- and we created the program that the other sponsors were kind enough to name the Elijah Cummings Youth Program in Israel.
I should tell you that, although I actively participate as a private citizen, we accept no government funds.
Each year, our Youth Program in Israel selects 10 or 12 Baltimore high school students to travel for a month throughout Israel -- all expenses paid.
I will leave it to Dr. Abramson to talk about the details of the program.
This morning, I will take a moment or two to touch upon a few of the aspects of our work that are most meaningful to me.
We are seeking to build upon some important shared values.
The value for the young people themselves and those whom they will lead in the future;
The value of improved understanding here in Baltimore about what life in Israel is like; and
The value of an improved set of inter-relationships among people of good will within our region's Jewish and African American communities.
I should tell you that, before their experience in Israel, some of our students have never traveled outside Baltimore or past the Mason-Dixon line.
This international travel experience opens their eyes and ears to a world that is both different and the same as the one they know. They learn about Israel in much the same way as Israeli young people would.
Each student gains a unique perspective about what is most important about their trip. For example, they talk about how difficult it is to be accepted into study at the local university in Tel Aviv. They discuss the guards and guns that they see carried everywhere, every day -- and the security measures taken to secure Israeli borders.
Our students also share with the Israelis the diversity of American culture and the reality of life in our community.
And adjusting to the culture and folkways of Israel sometimes proves to be a challenge.
The travelers have the opportunity to hear both Israeli and Palestinian positions from many points of view. And they return home telling us that both groups deserve respect.
Friends, I often say that our children are our living messengers to a future that we shall never see.
We are working to assure that the message that we are sending to the future is one of tolerance, mutual respect and peace.
When they return here to Baltimore, our students almost always express a shared conviction that their lives have been forever changed.
And I think that Art and Alan will agree that we adults who have been privileged to work together in creating this experience also have been transformed for the better . . . .
I share this experience with you this morning, ladies and gentlemen, because I believe that it is important for all of us to know the answer to this question: How and why are young people being transformed for the better -- and their benefactors along with them?
A significant part of the answer to this question must be found in fact that we are people whom others have killed just for being who we are.
This is a burden, sadly, that we share.
But you and I also share a far more compelling and positive bond.
Ours is a shared vision of humanity. More precisely, ours is a shared vision of the relationship of human beings to God.
Some of you may be familiar with the old Hasidic story that I once read in a little monograph by Andreas Schmidt.
A man asked some visiting scholars, "Where does God live?"
The learned men laughed at him, saying: "How do you speak! The world is full of His glory!"
But the man then answered his own question:
"God," he replied, "lives where he is let in . . . ."
God lives within all of us, my friends -- but only when we allow Him to come in.
And our shared religious tradition teaches us that we are letting God come into our lives we allow each other into our lives.
Ours has always been an alliance dedicated both to our mutual security and the human rights of all people.
Stresses and strains are not a new development in our shared experience.
We have always known that we must constantly renew and strengthen the dialogue among us.
That process is what our Youth Program in Israel is designed to foster.
In a "dialogue" people are respecting each other.
We are talking with each other, not at each other.
And, in that process, we find the ultimate basis for coalition in our shared understanding that we are all children of the same God -- the God who loves us and calls upon us to love each other.
The great philosopher Martin Buber wrote about two, contrasting types of human relationships. The first is the relationship that has fashioned so much torment for both the Jewish people and people of color -- the kind of relationship that we must constantly seek to overcome.
It is what Buber called the "I -- it" relationship -- people treating those around them as things.
When people treat others as things, not people just like them -- they have not let God live in them. And when God is excluded from the lives of men and women, my friends, it has been the terrible experience of our peoples that death camps and lynchings -- day-care-center massacres and wars -- must inevitably follow.
However, when we do let God into our lives, when we acknowledge that we all are children of the same God, we wake up to the shared humanity that is always within our grasp.
Then, we are operating in what Martin Buber called the "I - Thou" relationship to each other.
In a world guided by "I-Thou" relationships, the kind of inhumanity that our peoples have suffered would be impossible.
That, my friends, is the kind of world that we are working to create.
How and why are people being transformed in the Youth Program in Israel? The answer is clearly illustrated by the example of the young Christian student in our program.
She discovered the peace of Shabbat -- the peace she discovered by devoting the Sabbath Day by quietly "letting God in." And when she discovered the God who lives within her, she also realized that Jewish people were people just like her -- children of the same God.
This young woman discovered that Jewish people could be her friends.
In the Youth Program in Israel, we are hard at work remembering how to treat the strangers in our lives as people -- not things.
And, in so doing, the strangers are becoming friends.
"Where does God live? Where He is let in."
STRENGTHENING OUR DIALOGUE
Ladies and gentlemen, the kind of intense, "up close and personal" dialogue that I have been outlining for you this morning is the foundation of everything else that we hope -- and need -- to accomplish together.
Traditionally, ours has been a coalition dedicated to the security and human rights of all peoples -- including our own.
I know that you are very familiar with the famous statement of the First Century Jewish philosopher, Hillel:
"If we are not for ourselves, who will be? [However,] if we are concerned only with ourselves, what are we?"
Both of these statements have withstood the test of time and experience.
Yet, we know that there is a tension within Hillel's dictum.
During troubled and dangerous times like the present, it is understandable that people tend to become more concerned with themselves and less concerned about the welfare of everyone else.
This is an understandable reaction -- but it is fraught with peril.
That is why we must honestly and effectively address the tensions that will continue to arise among us from time to time.
We can accomplish that goal in the same way that has proven successful in the past.
The key is to be found in the "I-Thou" dialogue that created and is sustaining our Youth Program in Israel.
I am here this morning to applaud the efforts of the JCPA in fostering this dialogue.
You are engaged in the same kind of constructive dialogue and bridge building that Congressman Ben Cardin and I have worked together to achieve during our entire public lives. And in that process, we have become friends.
The key to dialogue, however, must be truth. And the truth is that some Jewish individuals and groups worked to defeat two members of the Congressional Black Caucus last year.
That fact need not become the dominating force in our relationship -- but it cannot be brushed aside either. It continues to be an issue of significant concern within the Congressional Black Caucus and for many of the people we represent.
These concerns continue despite the hard work that many of us have invested since that time.
And they continue notwithstanding the fact that the representatives who replaced these colleagues of ours are committed and capable people.
We cannot ignore reality.
But we can work together to assure that, in the future, the process of ascertaining our mutual self-interest is more extensive and productive.
We must also understand that there are those who will continue to seek to drive a wedge between us -- both here in this country and abroad.
Friends, I am also here today as a tangible expression of our commitment to do our part to manage these tensions in a constructive way.
We are committed to joining you in a process in which there is more mutual understanding and fewer opportunities for surprise.
We all have a lot at stake in this process of dialogue, my friends.
In a time of international conflict and terrorist acts, it is natural for human beings to advocate short-term measures that appear to increase our security.
Human rights typically suffer during these periods -- as both African Americans and Jewish Americans are painfully aware.
Our challenge as Americans is to foster the continuing dialogue and actions that will maintain a balanced perspective between short-term security proposals and human rights.
We are the leaders who must answer Hillel's questions for our time:
If we are not for ourselves, who will be? If we are concerned only with ourselves, what are we?
A HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA FOR OUR TIME
This brings me to the third and final thought that I would like to share with you, ladies and gentlemen.
My mother taught me when I was young that we must never forget from whence we come.
My translation of that good advice into my work today confirms an important reality that we must recognize.
We must not allow misguided and divisive forces of division to convince the American people that security and human rights are incompatible goals.
Last month, Ben Cardin was kind enough to join me in Columbia, Maryland, where I spoke during a program at the Beth Shalom Congregation.
We were there to honor the shared legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and one of his closest advisors and friends, Rabbi Abraham Heschel.
Those of you who are as old as I am will recall how the two men helped and encouraged each other.
Dr. King encouraged Rabbi Heschel's involvement in the Civil Rights movement. And Rabbi Heschel encouraged Dr. King to take a public stance against the war in Vietnam.
As a result, both men received some criticism from within their own communities at the time.
But, as we know today, they were right in their assessment of what conscience and self-interest required of this nation.
During that program at Beth Shalom, I asked this question:
What is the legacy of these great men -- and of all of the human rights advocates of that era -- for the leaders of our time?
We are called, I believe, is to transform the human rights in which we all believe -- human rights like a hungry child's right to food and a sick person's right to medical care -- into civil rights protected by federal law.
Along with our progressive allies in the Congress like Ben Cardin, the 39 members of the Congressional Black Caucus are committed to translating that message into a reinvigorated human rights agenda -- an American Agenda for our time and generations yet unborn.
We were elected to respond to the concerns that all Americans feel about their health care, their safety, their freedom and their economic opportunity.
And the people in our communities trusted us to do all that we can to protect them against the continuing threats to our traditional civil rights and freedom.
Let me outline briefly what we are seeking to accomplish:
This human rights agenda -- this American Agenda -- calls for federal legislation and funding that would: - assure universal access to affordable health insurance, - provide prescription drug coverage for our most vulnerable citizens, - guarantee a comprehensive patients' bill of rights and - eliminate racial and ethnic discrimination in federally-supported health care programs.
Our public safety initiatives should be one of balance -- expanding our protection against terrorist attacks and violent crime while strengthening our fundamental civil rights protection against abuse.
We must continue to oppose legislation that fails to protect the civil liberties of the American people -- and we must defeat federal judicial nominees who lack a proven record of support for our most fundamental values as Americans.
Dr. King argued that economic opportunity and security form the foundation for our ability to exercise and enjoy all of our other human rights. I agree. That reality is why the Congressional Black Caucus strongly supports: - increased federal aid for public education, - a higher minimum wage, and - a combination of extended unemployment compensation and job training for Americans who are out of work through no fault of their own.
It is also why we are convinced that this nation must: - expand access to affordable housing, investment capital and technological training; - invest in rebuilding America's cities; - fairly support our family farms; - strengthen our system of retirement security; - and better protect our environment.
Although this American Agenda is an ambitious one, our priorities within the Congressional Black Caucus are the goals that the American people need -- and deserve -- their government to accomplish. We also believe that these objectives are squarely within vision for American society that Dr. King and other people of conscience -- men and women like Rabbi Heschel -- devoted their lives to advance.
My friend and colleague, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, has observed that, if Dr. King were alive today: "...he would be in the forefront of reminding the government that its first concern should be the basic needs of its citizens -- not just black Americans but all Americans -- for food, shelter, health care, education, jobs, livable incomes and the opportunity to realize their full potential as individual people."
That is Dr. King's message to the leaders of our time, my friends.
And it is the same message that the Jewish Council for Public Affairs -- and all of the Council's partners in cities and towns throughout our land -- have traditionally work so hard to achieve.
I just stopped by this morning to thank you for that.
CLOSING
Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- and like Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel -- I believe that we can make this American human rights agenda a reality in our time. To overcome the forces against us, however, we must remain strong and united in our vision for a better America and a safer world.
We will prevail if we carry on this commission that God has entrusted into our hands "until justice rolls down like waters . . . and righteousness like a mighty stream."
That is my conviction and my faith.
So, I will close these remarks by sharing some uplifting words that I once heard Garth Brooks sing at a White House event.
I use Mr. Brooks words for the message that they convey -- and to emphasize that the vision and goals for which we stand are the legacy of all women and men, whatever may be the color of our skin.
We Shall Be Free
Garth Brooks Album, The Chase (Rel. 9/22/92)
This ain't comin' from no prophet,
Just an ordinary man.
When I close my eyes, I see
The way this world shall be,
When we all walk hand in hand.
When the last child cries for a crust of bread,
When the last man dies for just words that he said,
When there's shelter over the poorest head,
We shall be free.
When the last thing we notice is the color of skin,
And the first thing we look for is the beauty within,
When the skies and the oceans are clean again,
Then we shall be free.
We shall be free. We shall be free.
Stand straight, walk proud,
'Cause we shall be free.
When we're free to love anyone we choose,
When this world's big enough for all different views,
When we all can worship from our own kind of pew,
Then we shall be free. We shall be free.
And when money talks for the very last time,
And nobody walks a step behind,
When there's only one race and that's mankind,
Then we shall be free.
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We shall be free. We shall be free.
Stand straight, Have a little faith . . . ,
We shall be free.
Thank you for inviting me to join you this morning, friends.
And thank you for being people of courage and faith.
