Gore NAACP

TRANSCRIPT OF THE REMARKS BY AL GORE

TO NAACP 91st ANNUAL CONVENTION

Baltimore, Maryland - Wednesday, July 12, 2000

* There may be some textual errors due to transcription.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, NAACP. Thank you, Bill Lucy, for your kind words of

introduction and for your powerful leadership in our country and your leadership on behalf of

organized labor and working families. And I want to acknowledge all the members of

organized labor who are here as a part of this group also.

Let me say how proud I am to stand here with Julian Bond. There is no stronger, steadier, no

more soaring voice for justice and human dignity in all these United States of America.

And it is always an honor and a personal pleasure to join my great friend and former

colleague in the Congress, Kweisi Mfume, who is doing a tremendous job.

And I know how proud he is that you're gathering in his hometown of Baltimore because it is

from this city's streets that Kweisi Mfume has risen up to fight for the rights and opportunities

of all of our people.

And I want to also say a special word of thanks to Myrlie Evers Williams, who has done such a

wonderful job of getting everything in the right shape.

And we share something in common, which is we both have grandchildren born on the Fourth

of July. And last year when I was here it was right after my grandson was born and Tipper and

I just celebrated his first birthday. And we were catching up on grandchildren a little bit earlier.

I appreciate Mayor O'Malley being here and hosting us here in the great city of Baltimore.

I want to thank my fellow Tennesseans who are here in the Tennessee delegation.

Maxine, thank you, and Vasco, thank you. And my colleagues in the Cabinet, Alexis Herman

and Rodney Slater and Togo West.

And I want to also introduce to you the finest presidential campaign manager in the history of

this country, Donna Brazile. And I don't know where she got to.

Right here. Thank you.

Speaking of Baltimore, I want to congratulate a daughter of Baltimore, Vashti McKinsey, for

becoming the first woman bishop of the AME Church in over 200 years. What a breakthrough

for women and what a breakthrough for the AME.

God bless you, Bishop.

This, of course, is the home of the NAACP, and incidentally one of my team members and

colleges for so many years who is also here is the Cabinet--is the secretary of the Cabinet in

our administration, Thurgood Marshall, Jr., and I wanted to acknowledge Goody.

I am a member of the NAACP. It's good to be home.

I have come here, not just in an election year, but year after year.

I have worked with you. I have stood with you. I am proud to have won some battles

alongside you. You are American heroes, because for 91 years now, you've been the foot

soldiers for justice and freedom.

For 91 years now, you have been dedicated to lifting every child, leveling every barrier, and

leaving no one behind. For 91 years now, you have fought for a prosperity that runs much

deeper than our material possessions. It runs to the way we treat one another, the way we

respect one another, the way we cherish equality, seek freedom and love truth that sets us

free.

W.E.B. DuBois described the NAACP's mission this way: The discovering and redress of cases

of injustice. The NAACP has always championed the people, not the powerful; the weak and

the weary, not the well-off and the well-connected.

So to you, and to those who can hear my voice, I want to say it as plainly as I can: I'm

running for president because I want to fight for you. I want to help those who have not had

their fair share of justice, opportunity, equality and the American dream.

We've got to move forward together. I want to serve the people, not the powerful. I want to

take on the special interests on behalf of working families. I don't want to work for those who

make excuses for the way things are instead of striving for the way things are supposed to

be.

Bill Lucy, my fellow Tennessean, described the achievements of the last eight years, and I

appreciate that. I don't want you to forget what it was like eight years ago when there was

very high unemployment, there were deficits in the range of $300 billion a year and constant

arguments for cutting this and that, and always the wrong things. The national debt had

quadrupled in only a dozen years and we had problems getting worse across the board.

I know very well that you gave Bill Clinton and me a chance to bring change to this country.

So thank you, once again, for 1992 and for 1996.

And after the election, together we set our hands to a time of recession and doubt. We

assembled a diverse team that did indeed look like America and reflected the excellence as

well as diversity of America. And with that team, we began making changes and crafted a new

plan to lift up those who needed help and to strengthen our country by getting the hope and

opportunity to those who missed it the most.

What we did was to challenge the old ways. And I don't want you to forget either that it didn't

come without a struggle. It didn't come without a fight. It didn't come without a cliff-hanging

vote in the House of Representatives that we barely won by one vote. It didn't come without a

tie vote in the Senate which I had the honor and privilege of breaking as vice president,

making possible a one-vote margin in both houses of Congress.

The other side predicted that our new way would fail, would cause a disaster for the country.

Their predictions make for humorous reading now, when you set them beside the outstanding

record that Bill Lucy reminded you of, because they were--the other side was headed in the

wrong direction. And they still are.

They need to turn around and get with the program, because we now have evidence of

exactly why the approach that President Clinton and I have recommended and fought for is

good for our country and good for all of our people.

Instead of a triple-dip recession, and the deepest recession since the 1930s, we've seen a

tripling of the stock market.

Instead of the biggest deficits in history, we've got the biggest surpluses in history.

Instead of high unemployment, we've got the lowest African-American unemployment in the

history of the statistics and the strongest economy in the history of the United States of

America. We're making progress. We're headed in the right direction.

We need to keep going in the right direction, and I am here to say: You ain't seen nothing

yet. We're going to keep going. We're going to keep building. We're going to keep growing.

We're going to keep working together and climb to a higher place, a better place, with even

more jobs, where nobody's left behind.

I want to--I want to say that this distinguished audience includes not only our host mayor,

but Mayor John Street of Philadelphia. And I didn't see you, Mr. Mayor, but God bless you.

Thank you, thank you for being here, thank you.

Dr. Earl Richardson of Morgan State University.

And I believe that there's some Congressional Black Caucus members here. I haven't visited

with them yet. But, Peter Angelos, thank you for your leadership and your presence here

also.

Now, when I say you ain't seen nothing yet, I want you to know that I don't offer you

generalities. I want to offer you some specifics.

I believe that it is time to invest in people. I pledge to you that I will bring about--as

president, with your help--a continuation of the economic plan that has been good for our

people. I don't want to go back to the giant deficits that are caused by focusing on massive

tax cuts for the wealthy. I want tax cuts that are targeted to the people who need them, that

are affordable, that are focused on education and health care and child care and raising

children and strengthening families.

I believe we need more empowerment zones so that we can lift up the communities that

have not shared in this prosperity yet.

Alvin Brown, my executive director of the empowerment zone program, has worked with me

all over this country, and we have brought jobs to the places where they are most needed.

I want a specific program to clean up contaminated brownfields, good properties in good

locations that need to be cleaned up and used to attract new jobs.

Now, let me tell you why they're not being cleaned up. I'm going to go and visit one here in

the Baltimore area that the local leadership has tried mightily to get--to turn into a magnet

for opportunity and hope.

There is national legislation pending right now that would do that. And the Democrats support

it. And many moderate Republicans support it. Certainly people around the country support

it.

Why isn't it passing? Well, it is because there are powerful and wealthy special interests that

have entered into a secret agreement that was made public, to the embarrassment of those

who signed it, and the Republican leadership in the Senate pledged not to allow legislation to

go forward that would clean up brownfields because some of the big polluters in this country

didn't want it to go forward, and they secured a pledge that it would be tied to a special

interest provision to help the polluters.

Now, I believe that the bipartisan majority in the Congress that supports this, the bipartisan

majority in the country that is overwhelmingly in favor of it, has the right to say to the

Republican leadership and to the titular head of the Republican Party nationally: Put the

people first. Let's pass this legislation and bring some jobs to the inner city. Let's don't just

talk about it, let's actually do it by passing the legislation.

But instead of passing legislation to revitalize our community, this Congress keeps blocking

progress and trying to pass these massive giveaways to the powerful and the special

interests.

I think you can also see it when you look at the need we all feel to honor our fathers and

mothers by protecting Medicare and Social Security. I think it's time to put them both

off-budget in an ironclad lockbox. Don't treat them as piggy banks for other things.

And I will tell you this, I am against raising the retirement age and cutting benefits to the

seniors who deserve the help that Social Security and Medicare provide. I am opposed to

privatizing Social Security and diverting the money into the stock market.

I want incentives to invest on top of Social Security. I'm for Social Security plus, not Social

Security minus.

I also believe that we have a national responsibility to recognize that opportunity means

knowledge, and knowledge means learning, and learning means respecting our schools and

investing in them. I think it's time to start treating our teachers like the professionals they

are, and reduce the class size, and modernize the schools, and put more money along with

new accountability and reform into our public schools.

And I'm against draining money away in the form of vouchers that offer a false promise

because they don't pay the tuition, they just give the illusion, and they actually divert money

from the public schools.

And why in the world won't the Congress pass the legislation with bipartisan support, again, to

give local communities help in modernizing the facilities? These school buildings in many

places are falling down around the students and the teachers.

I have been to schools where there are no playgrounds anymore because the playground has

been covered up with trailers. I've been to schools where the facilities are so overcrowded

they have to feed lunch in shifts, with first shift in some cases starting at 9:30 in the

morning. I've been to schools where the desks have to be rearranged to avoid the ceiling

tiles falling on the heads of the students, as they sit at their desks trying to study. I've been

at schools where teachers are burdened with 35 students in the classroom.

You know, here we are in an information age when 60 percent of the businesses in America

have good jobs that pay good money. And they can't fill them because they can't find the

people with the education and the skills that are necessary to fill those jobs. Here we have a

debate every single year in America now about whether or not we are going to bust out of the

limits on immigration. And I'm for immigration--don't get me wrong. We are a nation of

immigrants. But it ought to be an alarm bell when we have the employers with the best jobs

in this country coming every single year, year after year, saying, "We have to go halfway

around the world to find people with a college education who can come in and take these

good jobs." We need to educate our own people with the skills needed to seize the jobs of

the future and build the future of this country.

Welcome immigrants, yes, but educate our own people and make the investments. Don't just

put all the attention on a tax break for the wealthy when our people need good schools and

well-trained teachers.

We hear all these people talking about how one way to control crime is to fix up the

neighborhoods because it changes attitudes. And yes, that's right, broken windows need to

be fixed so they don't convey a message of disorder and tolerance of evil-doing. But if that

theory works on crime, why doesn't it work on schools? What message do we send these

young people if they walk into a school that's falling down and in disrepair? We need to tell

them, not just with words, but with our actions that education is important, and that public

education is going to get a commitment and investment.

But this Congress is not only blocking that legislation, they actually tried to repeal our plan to

hire 100,000 new teachers. Well, they get an "F" for effort on education, as far as I'm

concerned.

And in order to have a strong America, we also need to have a healthy America. It is

unconscionable that we have 44 million of our citizens who don't have health care in the

midst of the greatest prosperity we've ever had. We ought to start by making a commitment,

and I make you this commitment: You elect me president, I'll make sure that every child in

America has full health care within the next four years. And then we'll move step by step

toward universal health insurance for all of our people.

Your health should not depend on your wealth.

I believe that one of the places to start is by saying to our seniors, "We understand that the

cost of prescription medicine is higher now. We understand that when you go to the doctor,

they're writing out these prescriptions that work but they're expensive."

I've talked to seniors who go to their medicine chest and take the pill bottles out and they

put them on the breakfast table and they go through each one and then make decisions

without consulting the doctor on which ones they are going to stop taking, which ones they're

going to cut the dosage in half on.

I asked one of them, "Didn't you consult the doctor?" And she said, "No, he'd just tell me not

to do it." I talked with a woman who said that she was eating macaroni and cheese every

meal for the last several weeks because it was on sale and it was the only thing she could

afford after she paid her prescription drug benefit--bill.

Now, we have an opportunity right now to pass legislation. And it is central part of my

platform. I believe that it is time to improve the Medicare program by adding a prescription

drug benefit for our seniors and giving them the help they need to buy their medicine so they

can follow doctors' orders.

But we can't stop there, because we have a set of problems in our health care system that

are bedeviling our people and need to be addressed.

I'll give you an example. I talked just yesterday in Arkansas, in Little Rock, with a doctor who

is a specialist in breast cancer. And she had a patient whose case she described to the crowd

that was gathered there at the medical center. She had a test that came back positive for

breast cancer; it struck fear in her heart, obviously. And she went for a second opinion. And

this specialist said, "Well, you know, it looks to me like this might be an unusual case where

you might not need a mastectomy, because it might be localized and we might be able to do

it with this other treatment, but you need an MRI," one of those expensive tests that's the

successor to the CAT scan. And her insurance company said, "No, we won't pay for that."

The doctor ordered it, but the insurance company nixed it, and they appealed. Who did they

appeal to? The insurance company. The insurance company said, "We stand by the earlier

decision that we made ourselves."

Now, the tragedy was, in this case, they went ahead with the surgery and afterwards they were

able to conduct the biopsy and found indeed that mastectomy was not necessary. But it was

performed because the insurance company wanted to save money on the test.

I talked with a couple out in the state of Washington whose little child, six months old--Dylan

and Christine Malone were their names, their child was named Ian--he had a birth trauma

and brain damage that caused him to have difficulty swallowing. And he needed a nurse and

needed to be suctioned out regularly. And the insurance company said, "We're going to stop

paying for that."

And they appealed and they said, "Well, the doctor said it's necessary. I've paid the

insurance premiums every month, you are obligated to give me the health care. I've kept my

end of the contract. Why don't you keep your end of the contract?"

But they wouldn't do it. And there's no law to make them do it. And in the dialogue with these

parents, the company actually advised them to consider giving up their son for adoption,

because Medicaid would then pay the bills that they were trying to avoid.

I'm telling you--I'm telling you--we need a law that takes these medical decisions away from

the accountants that work for the insurance companies and gives the decisions back to the

doctors and the nurses and the health care professionals, because they are the ones who

know what they're talking about. These accountants don't have a license to practice medicine

and they don't have a right to play God.

We need a real patients' bill of rights, and we need to make it the law of the land. But this

other group on the other side, they refuse to pass it. It failed by a one-vote margin--one

vote.

So let me tell you, it is time for some change.

Another change that's needed: We need to stop the violence and make our streets safe and

battle the scourge of drugs and get the guns out of the schools and out of the

neighborhoods.

It's time for this Congress to stop blocking progress and pass a bill that closes the gun show

loophole, and has mandatory child safety trigger locks, and gets these guns out of the hands

of the people who shouldn't have them. This Congress is blocking progress even on hiring

more prosecutors to enforce the gun laws that are already on the books.

And I know how much power is arrayed on the other side. I saw Charlton Heston on television

the other night. And he named me enemy number one, target number one. Held up a gun,

said something about prying his cold dead fingers off it or something like that.

Well, it didn't surprise me because two weeks earlier he had said that if my opponent was to

be elected, then Heston and his group will be working right out of the Oval Office in the White

House. But I advised him not to pack his bags yet because the last time--the last time

Moses took advice from a bush his people wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and he

may not be packing his bags right now.

At least he shouldn't be. We've got a few things to say and do. We've got some work to do.

He shouldn't count on it.

Now speaking--speaking of counting--speaking of counting, it's wrong what the leader of the

Republican Party and this Congress are doing in blocking an accurate census because they

don't want to count everyone that they don't think they can count on. I want to count

everyone. I want to count all the people of this country.

And incidentally, let me say one other thing on a very, very serious issue. I have worked very

hard on health care issues here at home, and I've worked on foreign policy, and I formed a

commission with South Africa and President Thabo Mbeki, and I have made more trips to

Africa than I've made to Asia. And one things that I have learned long since is that our entire

world needs to get up and get moving and confront this AIDS epidemic, especially on the

continent of Africa. It is a horrific challenge to our conscience, to our souls. We have to solve

it.

But now let me tell you, again, speaking about counting: There is a remedy for all these

challenges and all these problems, and that is to make sure that when the votes are counted

that we have a majority of the votes, and I want to talk to you a little bit about that.

And I want you to also think about the Congress, because I want you to consider how much

we can get done by taking back the Congress, how much justice will be redeemed when John

Conyers is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, how much economic progress can be

made when Charlie Rangel is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, how much

progress we can have when we get that leadership crew that shut down the Congress twice

and send them once again on a midnight train and get them out of the nation's capital.

And I want to make one further point, and this is connection with one of the things that I

want to ask you to do on my behalf. I just happened to see some of your convention on

Monday afternoon.

And I read about it in the newspaper, and I know that you heard some nice-sounding words

on Monday afternoon. But I remembered what scripture teaches in the book of James,

Chapter 2, Verse 18: "Yea, a man may say, Thou has faith, and I have works: show me thy

faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works."

That is my text for today. Now, look more closely at this text. Throughout the history of this

great nation, many have said much about the great issues of the day but far fewer have had

the courage and conviction to act on their words. Without the courage to act, Frederick

Douglass would have been just a newspaper editor; Harriet Tubman might never have built

the underground railroad; Dr. King might never have left the comfortable pulpit at Ebenezer;

Rosa Parks would still be riding on the back on the bus.

You know from a hard history and a long struggle that talk is cheap. It's deeds that matter.

Talk doesn't cost much. The true test is standing up to the powerful interests and fighting for

the progress that our people deserve. I want you to know I won't be silent. I will lead the

fight for our people. I will lead the fight for justice. I'll lead the fight for campaign finance

reform. I'll lead the fight for the progress we need.

Talk doesn't cost much. The true test is standing up to those who say they want to eliminate

affirmative action. I will defend affirmative action because it is still needed in this country and

I want to tell you why.

Think of this young entrepreneur in the majority community who is well-educated and has a

brilliant idea and wants to start a new business that will create jobs and growth to a mighty

industry, building prosperity. The first thing he or she does is pick up the telephone and call

a member of the family and say, "I need some capital, please, can you invest in my idea?"

Now, think of the entrepreneur coming from a minority community with an idea that is just as

bright, potential just as great, has the education, has the momentum, but comes from a

community where the families don't have the wealth, don't have the capital, don't have

savings.

The average African-American family wealth in America is 11 percent of the average majority

wealth in this country. Same for Hispanic families, roughly one-tenth. Because that's a

category that doesn't measure the progress or lack thereof in a single generation. It doesn't

measure the immediate effect of legislation that's passed. Family wealth is a category that

measures the accumulated effect of many generations of prejudice and diminished

opportunity, things that don't change overnight, unless we decide we're going to change

them.

If that young entrepreneur from an African-American community cannot get access to capital,

cannot find ways to get over that hurdle that has been placed there by history, then who is

hurt? That young entrepreneur is hurt because his dreams have been crushed. He cannot go

forward with his idea.

But he's not the only one who is hurt. What about all the jobs that he would create? What

about the economic strength of the community? What about our entire nation?

I tell you, affirmative action is good for the United States of America, good for our economy,

good for our future and good for all of our people. And I will fight for it.

Talk doesn't cost much. The true test is whether you are for an increase in the minimum

wage. I am for an increase in the minimum wage for those who most need the help. And I'm

not for a states' rights provision to let states overrule an increase in the minimum wage. My

opponent takes that position.

Talk doesn't cost much. The true test is standing up to those who don't recognize the need to

invest more in our schools, and instead proffer the illusion that you can drain money away

from them and not pay the price.

Talk doesn't cost much. The true test is joining our battle to ban racial profiling, speaking out

and acting. And as president, I will end racial profiling in the United States of America. I'll

make the DWB offense obsolete in America. I'll work to bring all of our people together.

Talk doesn't cost much. The true test is whether you are willing to take a stand when the

Confederate flag is flying over a state capital and you see that it needs to come down but

you are afraid to speak out.

Talk doesn't cost much. Taking a stand when it matters requires courage.

Talk doesn't cost much. The true test is to come here to Baltimore and vow to appoint a

Supreme Court that lives up to the legacy of this city's greatest son, Thurgood Marshall, and

interprets the Constitution in the way our founders intended it to be interpreted, not to give a

commitment to the far right wing to stack that court, because stacking the court would

threaten civil rights and threaten the fundamental guarantees of liberty in this country.

And when there is a closed-door meeting with the far-right-wing representatives and they

come out and say that, "We heard everything we needed to hear about the Supreme Court,"

that may not be public, but it is not difficult to understand.

Talk doesn't cost much. The true test is telling Trent Lott and Tom DeLay the time has come

for a tough new law against hate crimes because they are different.

We need to pass hate crimes legislation, because when we don't stamp out the sparks of

hatred, we risk a fire at the very foundation of our house.

And when James Byrd is dragged to his death behind a pickup truck, then the governor of his

home state ought to at least heed the family's plea for action.

In the words of James Byrd's nephew, "I asked him personally if he would use his influence

to help pass the bill, and he told me no."

One brief sentence that said the word "yes" would have mattered a whole lot more to the

cause of justice than a whole speech that didn't even mention hate crimes, the future of the

Supreme Court, taking down the Confederate flag, ending racial profiling or defending

affirmative action or Bob Jones University. One sentence with the word "yes" would have

mattered a whole lot more.

I'm not asking you to read my lips, I'm asking you to read my heart and watch my feet and

watch the work of my hands when joined with yours.

Standing together, marching together, we have a lot of work to do.

Let's heed the lessons of Clarence Mitchell, Charles Hamilton Houston, Roy Wilkens and Ben

Hooks, Rosa Parks. Let's fight together. Let's struggle together. Allow yourselves to believe

that we can do the right thing and be the better for it.

Let's make this country what it is intended to be. Let's rise above our differences. Let's

establish respect for difference. Let's pass the legislation. Let's make the march that will take

us to the mountaintop of justice and prosperity and progress and freedom for all of the

people of the United States of America.

I want your help. I want to fight for you. I want to fight for your families and the future of

America.

God bless you and thank you.

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