WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today addressed the NAACP’s 107th Annual Convention in Cincinnati. His remarks, as prepared for delivery, are as follows:

Sen. Brown Remarks to the NAACP National Convention
Monday, July 18, 2016; Cincinnati, Ohio

 

*As Prepared for Delivery*

 

To those of you not fortunate enough to be from Ohio, welcome to Cincinnati. As a proud lifetime, Golden Heritage member of the NAACP, I’m thrilled you’re in Ohio.

Thank you to President Brooks, Roslyn Brock, and everyone with the NAACP for bringing together thousands of activists from around the country.

The NAACP has a proud history in Ohio. Your founders include Mary Church Terrell, who would become one of the first African American women to earn a college degree. She studied at Antioch in Ohio and earned a Master’s degree from Oberlin in Ohio before teaching at Wilberforce College in Ohio.

My hero, Judge Nate Jones, was born and raised in Youngstown before making his home in Cincinnati.

And last year we lost one of Ohio and the NAACP’s great champions and mentor to so many of us, Congressman Lou Stokes.

Let me tell you a story about Lou Stokes.

Just days before the historic 2008 election, my wife Connie and I had the great honor of standing backstage with civil rights icons: Congressman Lou Stokes, Rev. Otis Moss – who served as Director of the Cincinnati-area Southern Christian Leadership Council in the 1960s – and his wife Edwina Moss, while more than 80,000 people waited for then-Senator Barack Obama to take the stage.

I listened as three veterans of the American Civil Rights Movement swelled with pride at seeing their generation’s hard-won victories make possible the election of our first Black president.

It was a profound moment that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

We have achieved so much under the leadership of Barack Obama. Yet too often recently, that moment of hope backstage feels distant.

It’s disheartening that in the United States of America, in the year 2016, there is still a need to defend the affirmation that black lives matter.

When we say “black lives matter,” we are of course not discounting the value of all people. Rather, we are acknowledge the fact that special attention must be paid to the disparities between black men and women and their white counterparts, and the racism that deepens these disparities.

We are acknowledging that too many young black men are being taught by society that they must put their hands up when they see police, instead of encouraged to raise their hands in the classroom.

Black lives matter.

And it’s important that we recognize that, because words have power. They are precursors to our actions and to our activism.

So let us say black lives matter, and let us work together to make black lives better.

In too many communities, the trust between our citizens and the officers who have sworn to protect them is strained on both sides and must be rebuilt from the ground up.

As President Obama said yesterday, “We as a nation have to be loud and clear that nothing justifies violence against law enforcement.

“Attacks on police are an attack on all of us, and the rule of law that makes society possible.”

The overwhelming majority of our police officers are dedicated public servants who risk their lives to keep the rest of us safe. As we saw in Dallas, they are the brave men and women who run toward the sound of gunfire.

We are grateful for their service and sacrifice. And I ask all of us to keep the officers protecting peaceful protesters in Cleveland on our minds this week during the RNC.

Our hearts ache for the families of Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa who died protecting peaceful protesters Dallas, and for the families of officers shot in Baton Rouge over the weekend - just as they ache for the families of Sam DuBose Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, and Tamir Rice.

My wife Connie Schultz who is a journalist interviewed Tamir’s Rice’s mother, Samaria Rice, who told her, I watched that video over and over. She watched it over and over, because those were the last moments she could see her son alive.

One of the ways we can work to repair what at this moment seems so broken is echoed in the theme of your convention: “our lives matter, our votes count.”

Vote.

Vote to reduce gun violence in this country.

Vote to reform a justice system that disproportionally imprisons African Americans, year after year.

Vote to stop the payday lenders and the car title lenders that come in like vultures and prey on our communities.

And vote to address unemployment and stagnant wages that drive people to these shady outfits in the first place.

The way we will begin to heal this country is by opening our democracy up to more voices – not silencing them.

We know how important this is – but we have to do the hard work of making sure our friends and neighbors know it too, and that they vote not just in November, but in our state elections and our local elections.

This is especially important now, since the Supreme Court has given a wink and a nod to conservative state legislatures and governors – from North Carolina to Texas to right here in Ohio – to roll back the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.

Let me tell you what it used to be like, and how it still could be.

Thirty years ago, when I was Ohio’s Secretary of State, we set up voter registration sites in High Schools and employment centers, food banks and DMVs.

I asked utility companies to include voter registrations in their monthly bills.

I asked McDonalds to print voter registration forms on the back of their placemats.

In fact, a couple of miles from here, at the Hamilton County Board of Elections, you will still find registration forms with ketchup stains on them.

We know our challenges are great – but I’m optimistic.

Let me tell you another, more personal reason why I have hope.

Last year, I helped launch President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative in Dayton.

I met a shy middle-schooler named James, who talked about wanting to make good grades, to help others, but, most of all, to “stay normal.”

Think about what this child’s life must be like, that his greatest wish was just to have what he called a “normal” childhood.

Looking around that room in Dayton, at the mentors who give their time to make a difference in the lives of James and other young men, it gave me hope.

Earlier this month when we launched My Brother’s Keeper in Cleveland and Akron, I met a young man who went from serving 42 months in jail to owning his own small business with plans of owning his own home very soon. That gives me hope.

It gives me hope remembering the words of a young man named Edward, who said he thought at one point in his life that he would end up in jail or dead, but thanks to his mentor he now sees a future for himself at the University of Toledo instead of behind bars.

Working with the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, I have seen the profound difference one person can make, and it gives me hope.

Looking around this room today, that hope is multiplied by all of you. If one person can change the world for a child, imagine the impact all of us can have working together.

Fifty years ago, a Mississippi Civil Rights leader said, don’t tell me what you believe – show me what you do, and I’ll tell you what you believe.

You show the country what you believe through your incredible work for justice. Thank you so much.

 

 

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