President Obama said that America will never truly be absolved for slavery if Americans don’t stand up against modern-day racism and xenophobia.
“We condemn ourselves to shackles once more if we fail to answer those who wonder if they are truly equals in their communities or in the justice system or in a job interview,” Obama said Wednesday from the Capitol, where government officials gathered to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.
“We betray the efforts of the past if we fail to push back against bigotry in all its forms,” he said to applause.
“We would do a disservice to those warriors of justice — Tubman and Douglas, and Lincoln and King, were we to deny that the scars of our nation’s original sin are still with us today,” Obama said, invoking abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas and President Lincoln as well as civil rights leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is the job of Americans today and future generations “to remember that our freedom is bound up with the freedom of others — regardless of what they look like, or where they come from, or what their last name is, or what faith they practice,” Obama said.
Obama praised the abolitionists and civil rights leaders who advanced equality in this country and then called on Americans to continue striving, to keep pushing for progress,
“To nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth: that is our choice,” he said. “Today we affirm hope.”
