Remember yourself, America.
Remember yourself, and cry no more.
Not all memory of what is good and decent is blotted out.
Remember your true verses, the ones scribbled in the margins
Recall these words they'd rather not behold.
Remember Yourself, America!
Remember and cry: NO MORE.
I know; the darkness is interminable, the nightmare from which awakening seems like a lost memory of life and sanity.
It feels like the storm and the flood, and the fall of tears will flood you like an ancient and lovely city by the sea.
And all of this surreal as it stands, stands because it is real. It has happened, and is yet happening to us now.
This is indeed the time of the storm.
But remember yourself, America.
Remember, and cry: NO MORE.
The words of comfort with the darkness are many, the fatalistic mutterings of men and women already given over to the darkness in their own souls, mirroring the very hatred of life and liberty and love they decry in others.
We have seen this acid before, and it has burned to the touch every time, the same recourse that made it easy to extinquish the first dwellers in these lands, then those who settled before us, then place marks on the backs of children as they were born into slavery, set the very wombs of women into a place of property. That acid fire that burns all love of life and liberty and love away, leaves nothing but an appetite for more to hurt and harm in its passing.
That is not America, but it is an evil that accompanied us to these shores and it is an evil that we fight with to this day -- whenever we choose to set the burden of justice aside, as if any load so light could be tiresome, and choose to rest our heads on the sharp stones of tyranny and fall to sleep at its mercy.
The storm is upon us...the words that make such horrors as mass slaughter and torture possible, of quietly disappearing first the foreigner, then the foreign of origin, then the simply different, then whoever the countenance of power decides simply does not fit the picture on a given day.
No. This is not who and what we are.
Remember yourself, America.
Remember, and cry: NO MORE.
And now time for a respite...Let us remember together. Remember the words that those who slumber still on the sharp stones of despair do not hear, do not wish you to hear.
For to hear them uttered, to see them read, is utmost shame to those who in their sloth set the sweet light burden of justice aside.
Who shall I select? Who shall speak for what America is? All, or none. I say! Everyone speaks of love of liberty, of that which is good, or none do so.
Yet, there are always the names we recall, those who in our hearts speak for us.
Let them, then, for a moment, remember America for us all.
let them, for a moment, remember and cry: NO MORE.
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
.. I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself.
- Lone Man, of the Teton Sioux
The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.
The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.
"My toast would be, may our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right."
"The Law: It has honored us, may we honor it."
"A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards."
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want. ... The fourth is freedom from fear."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I think people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love."
Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world--and never will.
Action is indeed the sole medium of expression for ethics.
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; not yet we, the male citizens; but we the whole people who formed the Union.
The protection of evil must be the most self-destructive job.
In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants.
Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression.
This is what we have forgotten. Not how to fight; oh, we do that so splendidly.
We have forgotten what we have fought for -- to the cheers of our children, and the children of every society across the world and time.
We have forgotten...what we must never ever forget.
What we were, what we were about, where we were going, before the nightmare came to claim our hearts again...and holds claim on so many still.
Remember yourself, America!
Remember, and cry: NO MORE.
Remember with tears. Draw release from grief.
Reawaken to the work of building again a hopeful, happy, healthy future.
Recall how to use the torch of your power to enlighten, to brighten, to guide, to lead, to shine.
Remember Justice, that sweet light burden by the way. Awaken, brush the shards of the tyrant's stones from your hair, and set foot to the path of progress again! Take up the burden of Justice, take the view up in time toward the light! Turn your back on the acid darkness.
Take...
Take my hand, take his and hers, too, and walk forward.
To walk clear of the darkness and despair, that is what we shall do.
It is a wonderful place that awaits for us to built it, this future. I have no idea what the shape of it will be. I just know that should we choose to awaken to the work of hope, rather than remain in the sloth of despair, it will be a truly magnificent place.
I know we will remember together how to get there, what course is best to take, how to work together to attend to the setback, make fords across the floods, bridges across the chasms, send scouts to the fore and the flanks to test the measure of what is possible, then bring news to the great center -- this way! This pass! This night we camp in comfort! The next day we will see our destination more clearly! All of us!
I want one day to remember this day, when we are all on the rise, with the nightmare valley behind us, and look forward...
It is a lovely place that waits for us to built it.
It's called the future, and making it a great and noble place is the only task worthy of an America that remembers itself.
That remembers itself, and cries no more.