Yesterday, Senator John Edwards delivered the keynote "Realizing the Dream" speech at Riverside Church, Harlem, New York City (14 January 2007).
You can listen to the full speech here(it took me about 5 minutes to download the mp3 file, so don't worry if it takes a while).
Update: Video of the event now available here.
I've included some quotes from the speech and media reports below.
Here are some excerpts of the prepared speech (not necessarily exactly as delivered):
Forty years ago, almost to the month, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at this pulpit, in this house of God, and with the full force of his conscience, his principles and his love of peace, denounced the war in Vietnam, calling it a tragedy that threatened to drag our nation down to dust.
As he put it then, there comes a time when silence is a betrayal -- not only of one's personal convictions, or even of one's country alone, but also of our deeper obligations to one another and to the brotherhood of man.
That's the thing I find the most important about the sermon Dr. King delivered here that day. He did not direct his demands to the government of the United States, which was escalating the war. He issued a direct appeal to the people of the United States, calling on us to break our own silence, and to take responsibility for bringing about what he called a revolution of values.
A revolution whose starting point is personal responsibility, of course, but whose animating force is the belief that we cannot stand idly by and wait for others to right the wrongs of the world.
And this, in my view, is at the heart of what we should remember and celebrate on this day. This is the dream we must commit ourselves to realizing....
Escalation is not the answer, and our generals will be the first to tell you so. The answer is for the Iraqi people and others in the region to take responsibility for rebuilding their own country. If we want them to take responsibility, we need to show them that we are serious about leaving – and the best way to do that is actually to start leaving and immediately withdraw 40-50,000 troops.
That is why I have spoken out against the McCain Doctrine of escalation. That's why Congress must step up and stop the president from putting more troops in harm's way.
If you're in Congress and you know this war is going in the wrong direction, it is no longer enough to study your options and keep your own counsel.
Silence is betrayal. Speak out, and stop this escalation now. You have the power to prohibit the president from spending any money to escalate the war – use it.
And to all of you here today – and the millions like us around the country who know this escalation is wrong – your job is to reject the easy way of apathy and choose instead the hard course of action.
Silence is betrayal. Speak out. Tell your elected leaders to block this misguided plan that is destined to cost more lives and further damage America's ability to lead. And tell them also, that the reward of courage ... is trust.
My favorite quotes from near the end of the speech (these are from my transcripts after listening to the speech) are those that define the meaning of life as community service and civic engagement (and how that so clearly puts out our Democratic values as opposed to the market-only crowd and the hyper-family-uber-alles preachers):
In the end it comes down to what Dr. King called life's most presistent and urgent message: what are you doing for others? What are we doing to for others? What are we doing to strengthen this great nation of ours? What are we doing to give every American a chance at the blessings of this country? What are we doing so that Americans and America can once again exist in a fair and just world? In the end, we know this is the only question worth asking. Answering them is the only work worth doing. The world need to see us doing it.
AP picked up the story -- "Edwards echoes King's anti-war message," by Beth Fouhy
Edwards addressed about 1,200 parishioners Sunday at Riverside Church, a multiracial, politically active Manhattan congregation where King delivered his famous "Beyond Vietnam" speech on April 4, 1967. King was assassinated exactly one year later....
Edwards also called on Congress to withhold funding for the troop increase, echoing a proposal announced last week by Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record). Kennedy's plan has been embraced by some other Democrats, including Dodd, but viewed warily by others who see it as unworkable and potentially harmful to troops already serving in Iraq. Clinton and Obama are among those who have not yet indicated they would support Kennedy's approach.
The New York Daily News also had a reporter at the event:
"Edwards follows King's footsteps at city church preach for peace," by Helen Kennedy, though again, she concentrated on the politics of the speech:
[The speech in Harlem] was a clear shot at his likely Democratic presidential rivals, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, who have shied away from plans to block new war funding for fear of being accused of undermining the troops already overseas.....
When a lone heckler asked Edwards why he voted for the war, he responded, "I voted for this war, and I was wrong. I take responsibility for that vote. It was not anyone else's responsibility."
It was another veiled shot at Democrats like Clinton who have not disavowed their vote and say they were misled.
Several Clinton allies were in the pews, including her close friend Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, who praised Edwards for his candor.
"It turns me on to hear a political leader stand up and say 'I made a mistake,'" Edelman said.
Team Hillary came out with this completely disingenuous and ham-handed response:
"In 2004, John Edwards used to constantly brag about running a positive campaign. Today, he has unfortunately chosen to open his campaign with political attacks on Democrats who are fighting the Bush administration's Iraq policy," said Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson.
I hope you'll listen to the speech as part of your celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I will do so again, before I head to my daughter's elementary school assembly.
You can take action by signing the petition calling on Congress to block funding of Bush's escalation of the war in Iraq.
Update II (2:43 pm): ourprez has his own transcription of the speech here.
Image: John Edwards greets Rev. Lisa Robinson of the Faith Haven United Church of Christ. Yahoo photo