Regular Session - January 13, 2009
140
1
2 NEW YORK STATE SENATE
3
4
5 THE STENOGRAPHIC RECORD
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7
8
9
10 ALBANY, NEW YORK
11 January 13, 2009
12 11:12 a.m.
13
14
15 REGULAR SESSION
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17
18
19 SENATOR NEIL D. BRESLIN, Acting President
20 ANGELO J. APONTE, Secretary
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22
23
24
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: The
3 Senate will please come to order.
4 I ask everybody to face the Flag
5 and pledge allegiance.
6 (Whereupon, the assemblage recited
7 the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
8 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: In the
9 absence of clergy, may we bow our heads for a
10 moment of silence.
11 (Whereupon, the assemblage
12 respected a moment of silence.)
13 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: The
14 reading of the Journal.
15 THE SECRETARY: In Senate,
16 Monday, January 12, the Senate met pursuant to
17 adjournment. The Journal of Friday,
18 January 9, was read and approved. On motion,
19 Senate adjourned.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN:
21 Without objection, the Journal stands approved
22 as read.
23 Presentation of petitions.
24 Messages from the Assembly.
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1 Messages from the Governor.
2 Reports of standing committees.
3 Reports of select committees.
4 Communications and reports from
5 state officers.
6 Motions and resolutions.
7 The chair recognizes Senator Smith.
8 SENATOR SMITH: Yes, Mr.
9 President. I have a resolution at the desk.
10 I ask that the resolution be read
11 in its entirety and move for its immediate
12 adoption.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: The
14 Secretary will read.
15 THE SECRETARY: By Senator Smith,
16 Legislative Resolution Number 10,
17 commemorating the 80th birthday of the
18 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and
19 paying tribute to his life and
20 accomplishments.
21 "WHEREAS, From time to time we take
22 note of certain individuals whom we wish to
23 recognize for their valued contributions and
24 to publicly acknowledge their endeavors which
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1 have enhanced the basic humanity among us all;
2 and
3 "WHEREAS, Attendant to such
4 concern, and in full accord with its
5 long-standing traditions, it is the intent of
6 this Legislative Body to commemorate the
7 80th birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin
8 Luther King, Jr., to pay tribute to his life
9 and accomplishments, and to celebrate the
10 23rd anniversary of the observance of his
11 birthday as a national holiday; and
12 "WHEREAS, Martin Luther King, Jr.,
13 was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta,
14 Georgia, to Alberta and Martin Luther King,
15 Sr., whose maternal grandfather founded the
16 Ebenezer Baptist Church, which the young
17 Dr. King would be associated with for most of
18 his life; and
19 "WHEREAS, Following his graduation
20 from high school at the age of 15, Martin
21 Luther King, Jr., earned a Bachelor of Arts
22 degree from Morehouse College in 1948, a
23 Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer
24 Theological Seminary in 1951, and a doctorate
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1 from Boston University in 1955; and
2 "WHEREAS, in 1953, Martin Luther
3 King, Jr., married Coretta Scott, who was an
4 accomplished individual in her own right as a
5 talented singer and a graduate of the
6 prestigious New England Conservatory of Music.
7 From this union came four children: Yolanda,
8 Martin III, Dexter, and Bernice; and
9 "WHEREAS, One year later, Martin
10 and Coretta King arrived in Montgomery,
11 Alabama, where he assumed leadership of the
12 Dexter Avenue Baptist Church; and
13 "WHEREAS, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s
14 leadership skills would be put to the test in
15 early December of 1955, when Rosa Parks's
16 refusal to remove herself from her seat in the
17 whites-only section of the city bus triggered
18 the 382-day Montgomery Bus Boycott, the first
19 great Negro nonviolent demonstration of
20 contemporary times in the United States; and
21 "WHEREAS, The bus boycott, which
22 ended December 21, 1956, when the Supreme
23 Court declared unconstitutional the laws
24 requiring segregation on buses in the South,
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1 propelled Martin Luther King, Jr. into the
2 national spotlight; and
3 "WHEREAS, In 1957, Martin Luther
4 King, Jr., was elected president of the
5 Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an
6 organization which formed to provide new
7 leadership for the burgeoning civil rights
8 movement, drawing their ideals from
9 Christianity and strategy of nonviolent
10 protest from Gandhi; and
11 "WHEREAS, At great danger to
12 themselves, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his
13 allies in the civil rights movement used
14 nonviolence to call attention to the racial
15 inequities that were pervasive throughout the
16 South, as well as to call for full voting
17 rights for African-Americans; and
18 "WHEREAS, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s
19 commitment to racial equality was laid out in
20 dramatic fashion on August 28, 1963, before
21 200,000 Americans of all races, from all
22 corners of the country;
23 "His well-known 'I Have A Dream'
24 speech, where he spoke of a nation that would
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1 'rise up and live out the true meaning of its
2 creed: We hold these truths to be
3 self-evident, that all men are created equal,'
4 and where his four little children would 'one
5 day live in a nation where they would be not
6 judged by the color of their skin but by the
7 content of their character'; and
8 "WHEREAS, Because of Martin Luther
9 King, Jr.'s dedication and commitment to
10 racial equality, today, in the 21st century,
11 his dream has become a reality with the
12 monumental election of Barack Obama as
13 America's first African-American president;
14 and
15 "WHEREAS, The Nobel Committee
16 recognized both Martin Luther King, Jr.'s work
17 as a civil rights leader and his moral stance
18 against racism with the 1964 Nobel Prize for
19 Peace at the age of 35, making him the
20 youngest recipient of this prestigious honor;
21 and
22 "WHEREAS, Martin Luther King, Jr.,
23 saw beyond race to address important issues
24 that affected all Americans, regardless of the
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1 color of their skin, including the Vietnam
2 War, economic injustice, and labor issues; and
3 "WHEREAS, By 1967, he had plans to
4 initiate a Poor People's Campaign to bring
5 much-needed attention to the issue of poverty.
6 It was on this unforgettable date, April 4,
7 1968, that Martin Luther King, Jr., was in
8 Tennessee to support the black sanitation
9 workers who were on strike when he was
10 assassinated; and
11 "WHEREAS, Just as Gandhi had
12 inspired Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so did
13 his words inspire Nelson Mandela, as well as
14 hundreds of thousands of black South Africans,
15 to fight against the system of apartheid until
16 it was also destroyed; and
17 "WHEREAS, Today, four decades after
18 his death, Dr. King's commitment to racial
19 equality and his tireless equality and his
20 tireless efforts to make this country 'one
21 nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice
22 for all,' is still remembered not just by
23 young and old Americans alike, but by men,
24 women and children around the world who study
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1 his work, and his words, and are moved to
2 action by his declaration that 'injustice
3 anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere';
4 and
5 "WHEREAS, A moving example of the
6 high regard with which Dr. King is held
7 globally is at London's Westminster Abbey,
8 where his statue, along with those of nine
9 other twentieth-century martyrs, adorn the
10 west front end of this venerable cathedral;
11 and
12 "WHEREAS, Upon the occasion of the
13 observance of the 80th birthday of the
14 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this
15 Legislative Body wishes to commemorate the
16 lifelong struggle of the man who wanted to be
17 known as a 'Drum Major for Peace'; now,
18 therefore, be it
19 "RESOLVED, That this Legislative
20 Body pause in its deliberations to commemorate
21 the 80th birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin
22 Luther King, Jr., and to pay tribute to his
23 life and accomplishments, and be it further
24 "RESOLVED, That copies of this
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1 resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted
2 to the New York State Black, Puerto Rican and
3 Hispanic Legislative Caucus, and to the family
4 of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."
5 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN:
6 Senator Smith.
7 SENATOR SMITH: Yes, thank you
8 very much, Mr. President.
9 Colleagues, today Martin Luther
10 King would be 80 years old. I think it is
11 very fitting that on this particular day we
12 recognize someone who clearly has been the one
13 to bring change to this entire country.
14 And we ourselves still are
15 experiencing and reaping the benefits of all
16 that Martin Luther King stood for. As you
17 know, next week, one of those who stood on his
18 shoulders will become the 44th President of
19 the United States, Barack Obama.
20 I myself stand here on his
21 shoulders as well, being the first
22 African-American Majority Leader in the
23 history of this state.
24 Many of my colleagues also are the
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1 "first to be" in terms of moving to a place
2 that Martin Luther King has always stood for,
3 justice for everyone.
4 And I find it very interesting that
5 yesterday we had a discussion about reform and
6 bringing change to this chamber, allowing
7 rank-and-file members to be equal partners.
8 And I remember and recall a quote of Martin
9 Luther King that "Injustice anywhere is a
10 threat to justice everywhere."
11 I think yesterday we recognize that
12 that injustice was that members of this house
13 were not treated fairly and that we will no
14 longer go down that path.
15 I think if Martin was still living
16 here today, he would have came here this
17 afternoon and would have been very proud of
18 each and every one of our members, because he
19 would have said this is the 62 that recognized
20 that their actions are speaking louder than
21 their words.
22 At 80 years old, I am sure he would
23 have been very proud of each one of us. And I
24 think we owe it to our families, our
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1 constituents to continue on with his legacy.
2 And I am very proud to be able to
3 stand here and say that had it not been for
4 him, perhaps there would not be a Barack
5 Obama. Had it not been for him, perhaps there
6 would not be a David Paterson. Perhaps, if it
7 was not for him, there would not be a Malcolm
8 Smith or a Ruth Hassell-Thompson, who is now
9 the first African-American woman in the
10 history of this state to chair the Majority
11 Conference.
12 So there's a lot of firsts,
13 Mr. President.
14 And I would just hope that our
15 colleagues recognize that it doesn't always
16 matter what one says, what really matters is
17 what one does.
18 And I think Martin Luther King has
19 been tremendous for all of us, and we now have
20 to take up that mantle and, from this day
21 forward, remember everything that we do,
22 someone will either change their lives as a
23 result of what we do or perhaps they will be
24 teaching some young person about you and what
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1 you stood for to try to move that young person
2 to another place in their cycle of life that
3 they will take up the responsibility to be a
4 responsible person in society today.
5 So we salute Martin Luther King
6 today, Mr. President. I salute all of my
7 colleagues. Each and every one of you, in
8 your own way, has a Martin in you, because you
9 are now going to do something in the future
10 that we all will be talking about at some
11 point as we move on with our lives.
12 Thank you very much, Mr. President.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
14 you, Senator Smith.
15 Senator Larkin.
16 SENATOR LARKIN: Thank you,
17 Mr. President.
18 Thank you very much, Senator Smith,
19 for introducing this resolution.
20 I probably am the only one in this
21 room that has ever met Dr. King face to face
22 in life.
23 But before Dr. King, I had the
24 distinct pleasure of commanding troops, in
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1 peace and war, who in those years were
2 designated not African-American, but black.
3 We went from the number 100th unit in Eighth
4 Army, a year later we went to number one. We
5 went to number one because we believed in
6 principles.
7 And those principles, as I look
8 back now from '49 until the time I met
9 Dr. King -- and I met him at Selma. I was the
10 Army's project officer on the visit to Alabama
11 on the 14th of March, to address the late
12 Governor Wallace and to ask him to activate
13 his troops, for this.
14 "For what?" he said. I said, "Very
15 simple. There is a peaceful march to show
16 respect and dignity for everybody, for all
17 Americans." Not African-Americans, not black
18 Americans, not Negro Americans, but Americans.
19 Because if you look at the march
20 that took place, our governor's father, Basil,
21 was in the front row. There was a picture in
22 the New York Times -- and I think we talked
23 about this before, Senator Smith, with the
24 Governor. I didn't know that. I was wearing
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1 suits like this in those days.
2 But it was a very interesting time.
3 You know, Governor Wallace told me where I
4 could go, and he told me where the President
5 could go, and neither one of us were going to
6 go there.
7 But at midnight that night on the
8 14th, I went back to the government building
9 in Montgomery and handed him his instructions
10 to activate the National Guard on the orders
11 of the President of the United States.
12 Now, Governor Wallace's comments
13 were, "Dr. King doesn't understand," quote.
14 The problem was that Wallace did not want to
15 understand.
16 This was not about Dr. Martin
17 Luther King. And too many people today think
18 it was about him. It was about where we were
19 going to go in this country.
20 We've made progress. But in my
21 meeting -- which took five minutes at the
22 most, and then I dealt with Dr. Abernathy, who
23 many of you know. And the question was not
24 what should we do but how should we do it.
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1 Dr. King said, "Just do me a favor.
2 Make sure that we have organized and
3 structured everybody so that there is no, no
4 violence on this march."
5 Now, some of you are too young to
6 remember -- Diane, you're too young to
7 remember. Even the Majority Leader is young
8 to remember. But what we did -- some of you
9 might have done a little history study on it.
10 But it was a major, major enterprise.
11 We brought troops from the signal
12 group all the way from Ft. Lewis, Washington.
13 We brought the 720 MP Battalion, from Ft.
14 Hood, Texas. We brought troops from Kentucky;
15 from Ft. Gordon, Georgia; from Stewart.
16 And we did it. The only rascal
17 that tried to get out of line was Bull
18 Connor -- some of you might remember that
19 name -- with the bullwhip and his hose. I had
20 the distinct pleasure of meeting him with an
21 FBI agent who was about six-foot-nine behind
22 me, and told him: "If you get out of line,
23 I'll throw your ass" -- excuse my language --
24 "in jail."
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1 I've never seen him since. I don't
2 know where he's at today; he may be six feet
3 under.
4 But the important part about it was
5 the structure. You know, we were in the
6 basement of this church, small church. And
7 there was a young woman who's written a book,
8 it's called "Selma, Selma, Selma." And in it
9 she says, "I never saw so many white people in
10 one location before in my life."
11 Now, that march was scheduled from
12 the 21st to the 25th of March. We had all of
13 the troops -- we had some of them lined up, we
14 had marshals, Dr. King's people had marshals.
15 And the goal was to get into Montgomery on the
16 25th without any violence.
17 Some of you who ever read anything
18 about the railroad -- probably Dale, from up
19 in Buffalo area -- knows the railroads have
20 these little jimmies that they go. And we
21 used to travel every day from today's position
22 to tonight's position to ensure that there was
23 no damage to the railcars. We had ordnance
24 explosive people look at the campsites where
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1 they would be that night.
2 Did it take a lot of time? Yes.
3 Did it take a lot of effort? Yes. Was it
4 worth it? One hundred times more.
5 What it showed us was that we had a
6 mission as Americans. And I go back to my
7 days as a young company commander. What you
8 give to somebody and show them how to do it
9 presents them with the goal of how to do it
10 for themself and others in the future.
11 I'm very proud of my
12 accomplishments on that mission. And I hear
13 people talk about Dr. King today. My
14 experience, there were a lot of Americans --
15 not African-Americans, Americans.
16 Dr. King said, "I have a vision"
17 when he met in August '63 in Washington, at
18 the Mall. What did he talk about? He talked
19 about his children, he talked about the
20 future.
21 And then here in 1968, after going
22 through that in '65, some idiot shoots him
23 because of his participation with the
24 sanitation workers in that hotel in Memphis.
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1 And, you know, what did it do to
2 our nation? It turned us into turmoil, riots,
3 everything else. Just because somebody didn't
4 like the way somebody was doing something.
5 Dr. King and I disagreed on the war
6 in Vietnam, but that's nothing. Other people
7 disagree on it. But one thing I thought that
8 he did is he tried to tell somebody to do
9 something.
10 And I think, you know, to sit here
11 today and sign onto a resolution and get home
12 and send it to the NAACP or some church,
13 that's -- big deal.
14 How about going back home and
15 saying, to your church group or your small
16 group -- as you mentioned to me, Senator
17 Smith -- that we have to not read but
18 introduce young people into what Dr. King
19 meant?
20 Just to say "I like Dr. King and
21 I'm so glad what he did," does that make us
22 people of Dr. King? No. What makes us people
23 is when we start to say stop the crime, stop
24 this, get an education, move out and move
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1 forward. That's what he was talking about.
2 But too often we don't tell this to young
3 people.
4 I'm proud to have been selected by
5 the chief of staff of the Army to represent
6 the Army and the American government at Selma
7 in 1965. It was an education. It was an
8 education for me, one that I've never
9 forgotten. Didn't get to meet the gentleman
10 but five minutes, but in five minutes he told
11 us the thing: Let's do it, let's do it right.
12 No violence. And remember, everyone is born
13 equal.
14 I'm glad, I thank you for putting
15 in this resolution. But I would like to make
16 one other suggestion. It was said that we
17 will send it to this one, to that one, to this
18 one. I think we ought to send it to every --
19 to the NAACP in New York, and the national,
20 and tell them what New York did, what New York
21 expresses, what New York would want.
22 Our young kids ought to be able to
23 go there and say, "That picture in there is of
24 Dr. King. What did I know about him?" And
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1 people start to talk about this, that, and the
2 other.
3 But they forget. He had a message.
4 If you're just going to listen to that and not
5 carry out some of these proposals, you have
6 failed Dr. King. You have failed his family.
7 You have failed yourself. We have failed
8 ourself.
9 Because when we work together as a
10 team, whether it's in this chamber here or
11 outside of here for our fellow human beings,
12 when we stop considering the aspect of our
13 fellow human beings -- here's a gentleman who
14 put his life on the line 44 years ago. He
15 knew that every time he stepped up, he was a
16 target.
17 Let's make sure that we do today
18 step forward and say, He was a target. He was
19 the goalkeeper. Let us do something. Because
20 if we don't, we'll be here a year from today
21 saying the same message.
22 Let's be here today and say, I will
23 try to communicate with my communities to make
24 them better citizens and to say, clearly and
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1 upright: Dr. King, thank you for your vision,
2 thank you for your leadership, and may God
3 bless you all.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
5 you, Senator Larkin.
6 Senator Parker.
7 SENATOR PARKER: Thank you,
8 Mr. President. On the resolution.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: You
10 may proceed.
11 SENATOR PARKER: Let me first
12 thank Senator Smith for introducing this
13 resolution and commemorating this important
14 day.
15 Thursday, January 15th, will be the
16 80th birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin
17 Luther King, Jr. And it's critically
18 important for everybody in this room, in this
19 nation, in this state.
20 What would have been his
21 80th birthday really gives us a time to
22 reflect, because there certainly would not
23 have been a President-elect Barack Obama, a
24 David Paterson, a Governor David Paterson, a
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1 President Pro Tem and Majority Leader Malcolm
2 A. Smith. There would not have been a
3 Majority Conference Chair Ruth
4 Hassell-Thompson, or a Majority Whip of
5 myself, if it had not been for the things that
6 Dr. King believed and fought for for this
7 country.
8 His message of nonviolent action --
9 and people remember the nonviolence, and
10 people very much try to forget the action.
11 And let me just note that the actions that he
12 took, sitting at lunch counters, protesting
13 both governments and private institutions that
14 in fact at that time were practicing Jim Crow
15 in the South in the 1950s and 1960s, these
16 were very, very, very dangerous things he was
17 doing.
18 It's not like now. You know, and
19 we look at modern-day civil rights leaders
20 who, you know, are disrupting sometimes in our
21 city and our state and they get arrested. But
22 getting arrested in 2006 or 2007 or 2008 in
23 New York City is different than the 1950s,
24 1960s, in Alabama, in Georgia, in Tennessee,
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1 in South Carolina.
2 People were getting arrested and
3 not knowing whether they were even going to
4 ever emerge again from those prisons, from
5 those jails that they were being held in.
6 People were beaten. People had dogs sicced on
7 them. People were, you know, hosed down with
8 high-pressure water hoses. I mean, this was a
9 significant amount of violence.
10 And in the face of that, Dr. King
11 embodied the philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi
12 and David Thoreau -- and Christ, quite
13 frankly -- and said, We should turn the other
14 cheek. That we should in fact confront
15 violence with an action that does not involve
16 violence.
17 And now this seems like a kind of
18 commonplace thing, but then it was really the
19 hot property. Because on the other hand you
20 had other leaders who were in fact not looking
21 at that -- you know, at that modality as the
22 way to go. And there was really a hot debate,
23 both within the larger civil society of
24 America but particularly within black and
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1 Latino communities, about how you in fact
2 address the problem of de jure segregation and
3 racism, both institutional and individual.
4 At a time when people were being
5 lynched literally daily, Dr. King had really
6 the leadership and the vision and the
7 prophetic message to go out there and to
8 organize people.
9 See, people think that his greatest
10 gift are the words that he spoke. Quite
11 frankly, that was the least of it.
12 If you look at what the enduring
13 contribution of Dr. King was, it's really
14 about organizations. It's really about
15 looking at the Southern Christian Leadership
16 Conference and really looking at SNCC, the
17 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and
18 looking at organizations like the NAACP and
19 the Urban League and CORE, the Congress of
20 Racial Equality.
21 It is really -- because movement
22 happens not by individuals but by
23 organizations. And the ability for -- and
24 again, these things seem like, you know, why
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1 are you saying this, because it's kind of
2 commonplace now. But at that time, organizing
3 African-Americans against racism and Jim Crow
4 was not an easy thing.
5 NAACP, you know, they meet in
6 Brooklyn, and Bed-Stuy Restoration, you know,
7 monthly. Nobody says -- no press conferences.
8 Nobody pays attention.
9 But to organize an NAACP chapter,
10 you know, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in
11 1950-something was tantamount to committing
12 mass suicide.
13 And so when we look at Dr. King's
14 contribution, we should contextualize it at
15 the time that it was and understand that we
16 are here and walk the streets in relative
17 safety to those times because of the
18 contributions and the organization of
19 Dr. King.
20 And I'll wrap up, Mr. President.
21 Everybody knows King from the March
22 on Washington and the great "I Have A Dream"
23 speech. But remember when Dr. King went to
24 Washington, he went to cash a check. And
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1 unlike many of us who to go cash, you know,
2 our well-paid government checks, he went to
3 cash a check on the promise that America had
4 made to give people an opportunity, of this
5 being the land of the free and the home of the
6 brave.
7 And when he went there, he said
8 that the check of freedom had been marked
9 "insufficient funds."
10 Let me say to you today that with
11 the election of Barack Obama and having David
12 Paterson as our Governor and Malcolm Smith as
13 our Majority Leader, the debt has not been
14 paid yet, but we are beginning to put a down
15 payment on freedom for everybody in this
16 country.
17 It is frankly not until we start
18 dealing with things like unequal economic and
19 employment opportunities in this country are
20 we going to be able to say that that debt has
21 been fully paid.
22 It's not until we get rid of health
23 disparities in this country, particularly
24 amongst African-Americans -- who are the
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1 leaders in every single major detrimental
2 health disparity in this country, whether
3 you're talking about AIDS or colon cancer or,
4 you know, just even the common cold -- until
5 we're able to deal with those health
6 disparities, we will not be able to say,
7 Mr. President, that this has been paid in
8 full.
9 Until we in fact make sure that the
10 housing opportunities for everyone in this
11 country are the same -- until we in fact see
12 marriage equality in this country -- we're not
13 going to be able to say that we have marked
14 Dr. King's check of freedom "paid in full."
15 Because, as Dr. King reminded us,
16 injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
17 everywhere. And that this message was not
18 simply about African-Americans, it was about
19 everyone. It was about everyone.
20 It was about making sure that there
21 was justice for women, making sure there was
22 justice for Latinos and Asians, for whites,
23 making sure that there was justice for any
24 group that might be discriminated against or
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1 being threatened or hurt.
2 That that is in fact the shining
3 city on the hill that we're still trying to
4 climb to. And we're not there yet. But
5 hopefully, that in this body, we will in fact
6 make Dr. King's message valid and, as Senator
7 Larkin said, in fact make it embodied in our
8 actions every single day.
9 As we leave this chamber today,
10 that we will be refortified with the message,
11 the life and the legacy of Dr. King, and that
12 we will bring those messages to our districts.
13 And not just giving the speeches
14 over the next week, but indeed, as we in fact
15 craft that legislation, as we in fact deal
16 with community-based organizations, as we look
17 at how we in fact balance a budget with a
18 $15 billion deficit, in those things, that's
19 the time that we need to be embodying Dr.
20 King's message.
21 This Monday I actually am holding
22 an MLK event called "The Shared Dream." It's
23 a tribute to the life and legacy of the
24 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King in words and
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1 song.
2 I'm going to take this opportunity
3 to extend the invitation personally to all my
4 colleagues here, and to their constituents.
5 It's going to be in my district, but it's not
6 going to be limited to those folks.
7 It's a free gospel concert. We're
8 celebrating the day in a way that I think that
9 Dr. King would have celebrated it, by lifting
10 the name of his Savior, of his Christ, and
11 remembering where he got his inspiration from.
12 So it will be 5:30 the doors open
13 at Brooklyn College, at the Walt Whitman
14 Theater. Again, I welcome all of you. We're
15 going to have a great gospel concert. It's
16 going to feature a good friend and somebody
17 who is just a real genius as it relates to
18 gospel music, Kurt Carr and the Kurt Carr
19 Singers.
20 And so that is a small way in which
21 I bring to my district and try to bring to the
22 state -- this actually turned out, with over
23 2,000 people, to be the second-largest MLK
24 event in the City of New York.
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1 And so I look forward to our
2 continued work together and, day by day,
3 living the legacy of Dr. King.
4 Thank you very much, Mr. President.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
6 you, Senator Parker.
7 Senator Hassell-Thompson.
8 SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank
9 you, Mr. President.
10 I too would rise to congratulate
11 our Leader on bringing this resolution to the
12 floor and giving us an opportunity to continue
13 to lift the name of Dr. Martin Luther King in
14 praise and certainly in gratitude for all of
15 the things that he did that allowed us to be
16 in this place.
17 Senator Larkin, you're not the only
18 person in this chamber who has ever met
19 Dr. King. I too had the great fortune.
20 In the City of Mount Vernon, one of
21 its oldest churches -- in fact, its oldest
22 Baptist church -- is Grace Baptist. And he
23 came to Grace Baptist Church to bring his
24 message of hope and bring his message of true
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1 freedom. And I was one of those very
2 fortunate people who could get into the
3 church.
4 I mean, there were crowds waiting
5 almost a block away, attempting to be inside.
6 And I was one of those who was inside and had
7 the opportunity to actually shake his hand.
8 And at that moment, for me, I think
9 it helped to seal the commitment that I have
10 tried to make and the walk that I have tried
11 to walk to ensure that my life would reflect
12 gratitude for the dream that he believed and
13 certainly one that he lived.
14 And I think that when I speak each
15 year on this resolution I continue to convey
16 the message that while I was not the kind of
17 person that could have made those marches,
18 because I didn't have the temperament for
19 those marches, but I certainly had the heart
20 for what the work of Dr. King was about.
21 And so I admonish all of us to
22 continue to walk in that light, because he
23 brought a message, he brought a -- he was a
24 liver of the dream. He was a person who
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1 believed in what he spoke about.
2 Some of us speak rhetorically. But
3 as I heard our Leader say, we pay attention
4 not so much to what people say, but to what
5 they do. And in that posture, if we watch
6 each other and if we help each other, we will
7 continue to live out the dream.
8 We have an obligation. We took a
9 sworn oath not only to support the
10 Constitution of the United States and the
11 Constitution of the State of New York but
12 also, in that process, we took an oath to
13 serve. And if we serve, if we do the best
14 that we can, then we will live out the dream.
15 We will create laws and we will break down
16 barriers that keep people from having the
17 opportunities that they can have in life.
18 And so thank you, Mr. President,
19 for the opportunity to stand with others as we
20 commemorate one of our greatest leaders in
21 this country today.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
23 you, Senator Hassell-Thompson.
24 Senator Stewart-Cousins.
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1 SENATOR STEWART-COUSINS: Thank
2 you, Mr. President.
3 I too rise to commend our Leader,
4 Malcolm Smith, for putting forth this
5 resolution and having us spend these moments
6 to commemorate the legacy and the life of
7 Dr. King.
8 On January 15, 2009, my grandson,
9 Kendall Xavier Cousins, will celebrate his
10 sixth birthday. It will be five days before
11 President Barack Obama takes the oath of
12 office.
13 He will continue his life in a
14 state that has Governor David Paterson and
15 Majority Leader Senator Malcolm Smith. He
16 will have a grandmother who's a Senator. And
17 he will know of the amazing times that he was
18 born into.
19 He won't know, unless we tell him,
20 of the stories that his great-grandparents
21 went through. And I'll have to remind him
22 that my mother and father didn't believe, as I
23 stand here and relate this on a yearly basis,
24 didn't believe that Dr. King could do what he
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1 said he could do.
2 My parents didn't believe that the
3 heart of America could open. They didn't
4 believe that black people in America could
5 achieve the success that he inspired the world
6 to believe America could achieve.
7 My parents, as they went through
8 menial jobs, no jobs, as they were told again
9 and again because of the color of their skin
10 they could not go to school, they could not go
11 to college, they could not have a living wage,
12 they could not do.
13 My parents, despite whatever they
14 had personally achieved, believed that it was
15 better for us to just work hard in our own
16 little lives and not depend on the dreams of a
17 Dr. King, who might leave us after he'd gone
18 on to glory and even a worse place. They
19 were, on many levels, afraid.
20 And every time we saw the images of
21 the dogs and the jail and we understood that
22 people got lynched and chastised for daring to
23 stand up, on some level my parents said: You
24 see? We were right. Just take a moment.
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1 But what all of us didn't recognize
2 as we were looking at what was happening out
3 there is that the seeds were being planted.
4 That the hope, the inspiration, the vision --
5 regardless of what it looked like -- was
6 taking hold. And moment after moment, this
7 society, this America, black people in
8 America, were growing.
9 And as we grew, things moved. And
10 although Dr. King knew he would not see the
11 vision realized, we every day realize that his
12 vision is here.
13 So as Kendall celebrates his
14 birthday on the 15th, coming into a very
15 different world than his ancestors knew, I
16 want to remind Kendall and all the Kendalls --
17 and all of us -- that our actions do speak
18 louder than words.
19 We do need a messenger who
20 rhetorically can lift us to those heights.
21 But every single action creates an
22 opportunity. Our actions here, our actions in
23 our lives make the vision that we aren't even
24 brave enough to see come true.
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1 So as we celebrate this, I hope
2 that we understand that our moments of living
3 give life to the vision that is brighter and
4 stronger than even Kendall can realize.
5 Thank you.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
7 you, Senator Stewart-Cousins.
8 Senator Perkins.
9 SENATOR PERKINS: Thank you,
10 Mr. President.
11 And I want to thank Senator Smith,
12 our Leader, for giving us the opportunity to
13 reflect and recommit on this very, very
14 important life, this very, very important
15 individual that so many of us have been
16 influenced by, that has made such an important
17 difference to our nation and to the world, for
18 that matter.
19 And, you know, you mentioned
20 injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
21 And for the most part, we tend of think of
22 Dr. King as a civil rights leader of great
23 influence and importance. But actually, his
24 leadership is perhaps more germane now beyond
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1 civil rights than ever before.
2 Because quite frankly, we may
3 remember that when he died, when he was
4 assassinated, it was not a civil rights
5 journey, it was on an economic justice
6 journey. It was on an economic justice rights
7 journey.
8 And in fact, he was on his way to
9 Washington as we are, some of us, next week.
10 But not to celebrate, unfortunately, the
11 president, or the agenda of the president. In
12 fact, quite the opposite, to criticize that
13 agenda and to demand, in a Poor People's
14 Campaign, that this nation had a
15 responsibility to address the economic crisis
16 that the poor, especially, were experiencing.
17 And as we have the privilege here
18 in this really momentous time to address a
19 similar crisis in this state, I would hope
20 that in the spirit of Dr. King that we
21 remember, as we maneuver this budget, this
22 very challenging budget, that we do not
23 victimize the poor anymore than they already
24 are.
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1 That we recognize, as Dr. King I
2 believe would recognize, that there are those
3 who have more who can give more. And that as
4 we begin to try to balance out the inequities,
5 that we look to those who have more to help
6 those who have less.
7 And that when we do get the
8 opportunity to celebrate Barack Obama and the
9 history-making that he is about to bring
10 forward, that we celebrate it with Dr. King's
11 agenda in mind -- not just a civil rights
12 agenda but, very more importantly, the
13 economic justice agenda.
14 And let me just say one other thing
15 in conclusion. Dr. King made an extraordinary
16 speech that some of us remember first at
17 Riverside Church in New York City, in my
18 district, and then again in a very remarkable
19 moment at the United Nations, embracing
20 Stokely Carmichael.
21 Stokely Carmichael and Dr. King, as
22 you know, were at odds from different points
23 of view, sort of in the spirit, I think, that
24 Senator Thompson was talking about, because
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1 Stokely was radical, young, aggressive,
2 militant, Student Nonviolent Coordinating
3 Committee, and Dr. King was considered to be
4 different and civil rights and peace.
5 But they embraced because at that
6 point they both stood against a war, at the
7 United Nations, that was diverting resources
8 from the agenda of the people in the
9 country -- dollars, many, many dollars, sort
10 of like what's happening right now with the
11 Iraq War.
12 And so we have to keep that kind of
13 memory of Dr. King as legislators with the
14 privilege of making the difference, because he
15 really was talking to us when he decided to go
16 to Washington. He wasn't talking to Wall
17 Street, he was talking to those of us that
18 have the privilege of really making the
19 difference.
20 He recognized the awesome
21 opportunities that we have, more so perhaps
22 than we would recognize it, and was
23 sacrificing his life in order to convince us
24 that we can make a difference.
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1 And I hope that we will try to do
2 that here in this historic moment in state
3 government, again in the historic moment
4 that's going to take place in Washington.
5 And I just want to say I didn't get
6 a chance to meet him, though I must say that
7 my first, most significant introduction to
8 this was at the Poor People's Campaign in
9 Washington, D.C., where I had the opportunity
10 to organize and to attend and spend some time
11 down there.
12 So when I go down next week, I will
13 be going down remembering the Poor People's
14 Campaign, remembering those tents that were
15 down there, those folks that came from all
16 over the country -- from Appalachia, from
17 Harlem, from all the communities that were
18 desperately in need of the influence of
19 government to make a difference in their life.
20 And that's the spirit in which I will be
21 attending it.
22 So I want to thank you again for
23 reminding me of how important is that aspect
24 of Dr. King's life.
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1 Thank you.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
3 you, Senator Perkins.
4 Senator Diaz.
5 SENATOR DIAZ: Thank you,
6 Mr. President. On the resolution.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: You
8 may proceed, Senator Diaz.
9 SENATOR DIAZ: Mr. President, I
10 never met Martin Luther King, never worked
11 with him, never saw him in person. But today
12 I'm joining my colleagues and my Leader,
13 Malcolm Smith, in being part of this
14 resolution.
15 Yesterday, yesterday here on this
16 floor, something great happened, and I don't
17 want that to go unnoticed. My colleague,
18 Senator Parker, said that the debt on the
19 black community has not been paid, that just a
20 payment has been done. And yesterday
21 something happened here because, thanks to the
22 effort of Martin Luther King, his death, and
23 all his achievements, people have been
24 getting -- we all have been getting benefits.
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1 Yesterday, on this floor, our
2 Hispanic community got something that we never
3 had. Something -- two things we got
4 yesterday. In the person of my colleague
5 Pedro Espada, we have a position in our
6 community that we never had before. So
7 yesterday our Leader, Malcolm Smith, appointed
8 Pedro Espada, and we all rejoiced in the
9 Hispanic community for what we have gotten.
10 But not only Pedro Espada.
11 Yesterday here also, for the first time in the
12 history of this chamber, a Hispanic Senate
13 Secretary was appointed in the person of
14 Angelo Aponte.
15 So we in the Hispanic community,
16 Senator Parker, our debt has not been paid,
17 just a little deposit has been made.
18 I rejoice in the achievement of my
19 brothers and sisters in the Afro-American
20 community -- Barack Obama, like Parker said,
21 David Paterson, Malcolm Smith. But we in the
22 Hispanic community also are fighting to get
23 our share of it. So we started. We started
24 yesterday, we started this year, in the person
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1 of Pedro Espada and in the person of Angelo
2 Aponte.
3 So I never met Martin Luther King,
4 never worked with him, never saw him. But let
5 me tell you what I saw and what I know,
6 Mr. President.
7 In 1960 I was 18 years old in
8 Puerto Rico, running in the street in Puerto
9 Rico. But there was a conflict in Vietnam,
10 and when I got to be 18, I went, voluntary,
11 and joined the United States Army so I could
12 go and fight for my country. I didn't know
13 anything. I was -- I didn't even know that I
14 was black when I was in Puerto Rico. I didn't
15 know I was black, 18 years old, running,
16 playing, innocent. I didn't know.
17 Then I joined the Army in
18 Puerto Rico, and I was sent, in 1960, I was
19 sent to Columbia, South Carolina, to
20 Ft. Jackson, to get my basic training. Martin
21 Luther King was not yet working for -- it was
22 1960.
23 And when I got to Columbia, to
24 Ft. Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, I was
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1 traveling from Puerto Rico with all my white
2 brothers and sisters from Puerto Rico. I was
3 the only black. But I didn't even -- I didn't
4 know I was black until I got to Columbia,
5 South Carolina.
6 Then I found out what I was. Then
7 I found out something that until today I know,
8 and people don't know, that I'm black and
9 Hispanic, and that I'm in a limbo stage.
10 Because when I went to Columbia,
11 South Carolina, with my white and Hispanic
12 fellows and we went to a bar, all of us
13 Puerto Ricans, and we all sat down in a bar in
14 Columbia, and the waiter came and took their
15 orders, and they all ordered beers, and the
16 waiter turned his back on me and walked away.
17 And I called him and said, "I want
18 a beer too." He told me, "Whatever you're
19 looking for, we haven't got it."
20 So I turned to my colleagues from
21 Puerto Rico, my Puerto Rican friends, white,
22 and said, "What happened?" They told me, "He
23 doesn't want to serve you." "So what do I
24 do?" They told me: "You have to leave." And
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1 I left, alone, while my fellow Puerto Ricans
2 stood there in the bar.
3 So we black Hispanics, we're in the
4 limbo stage. And when there is a fight
5 between black and Hispanic, I don't even know
6 who I am. For the black, I'm Hispanic; and
7 for the Hispanic, I'm black.
8 (Laughter.)
9 SENATOR DIAZ: So then when I'm
10 in Columbia, South Carolina, I start to notice
11 things that I have never noticed before.
12 When I went back to Puerto Rico, I
13 start seeing things. For example, I started
14 to notice that the governor of Puerto Rico,
15 his cabinet, they were white, and there is no
16 black, Hispanic.
17 So then you start to question
18 yourself: Are we brutes? Are we dumb? Is
19 there no black, Hispanic capable to occupy one
20 of those positions?
21 Martin Luther King started to work,
22 started to work. And we're all praising
23 Martin Luther King and we are joining together
24 praising the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King.
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1 But ladies and gentlemen, yesterday
2 the Hispanic community got two major steps.
3 And Parker, when you talk about to pay the
4 debt on the black community, remember that
5 we're in line too there and we need to be also
6 equal or at least considered also in position.
7 We join the nation and the
8 Afro-American community in the pride of naming
9 Barack Obama the first black president. I
10 mean, first black president.
11 I need to feel proud to also name
12 the first Hispanic president, the first
13 Hispanic mayor of the City of New York, the
14 first Hispanic -- not only the position we've
15 got, this, but maybe the first Hispanic
16 majority leader here one day.
17 So we also are fighting to achieve
18 what you have achieved. And we are proud and
19 we also would like you all to join us in our
20 struggle to achieve what you have achieved,
21 because you have achieved big time. So even
22 though your debt has not been paid in full,
23 hey, I wish to be in your shoes.
24 (Laughter.)
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1 SENATOR DIAZ: So, Mr. President,
2 I'm proud to be here. I'm proud to be part of
3 the first Puerto Rican to be appointed, in the
4 person of Pedro Espada, into that position,
5 and that the Hispanic community feels proud
6 and honored to have played a part in that
7 position.
8 I'm proud. I'm proud to be part of
9 naming the first Afro-American Majority
10 Leader. And I'm proud to be part of naming
11 the first Hispanic Secretary of the New York
12 State Senate.
13 We're still fighting, still more to
14 go. The three amigos are still together. The
15 three amigos will keep fighting for more.
16 (Laughter.)
17 SENATOR DIAZ: It is not done
18 yet. So don't blame us. We got to keep
19 fighting. We got to keep fighting. We got to
20 keep strong.
21 Thank you, the Majority Leader,
22 Malcolm Smith, for this resolution.
23 And thank you, Mr. President, for
24 this opportunity.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
2 you, Senator Diaz.
3 Senator Savino.
4 SENATOR SAVINO: Thank you,
5 Mr. President.
6 I'm not quite sure how to follow
7 Reverend Diaz.
8 I'd like to thank Senator Smith for
9 having brought this resolution. And as we
10 reflect on the 80th birthday of Dr. Martin
11 Luther King, 44 years after his untimely
12 death -- 50 years, I think, since the March on
13 Washington, the "I Have A Dream" speech -- I
14 think it's interesting to look at where we are
15 in this place in history.
16 Certainly many would argue that
17 Dr. Martin Luther King was one of the greatest
18 community organizers this country has ever
19 seen. We are on the verge now of installing a
20 president who many have kind of mocked during
21 the campaign as nothing but a community
22 organizer, and yet we see what community
23 organizers can accomplish.
24 The history books tell us of
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1 Dr. King's place in the civil rights movement,
2 and they teach us about the Poor People's
3 Movement that Senator Perkins spoke about so
4 eloquently, and his fight against economic
5 injustice and eradicating discrimination and
6 tearing down barriers and walls. And all of
7 those things are well-documented, and most of
8 us know about it.
9 But what the history books rarely
10 focus on and they mostly gloss over is what
11 Dr. King was doing in Memphis on that fateful
12 day in April of 1968.
13 Because he was as committed to
14 workers' rights as he was to civil rights, to
15 women's rights. And he was in Memphis
16 assisting a bunch of sanitation workers who
17 were represented by an AFSCME local but who
18 experienced great discrimination by the City
19 of Memphis and the Department of Sanitation.
20 Workers who were not issued
21 uniforms; black sanitation workers were not
22 entitled to uniforms. They couldn't ride in
23 the truck. They weren't allowed to pick up
24 garbage in white neighborhoods. They weren't
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1 allowed to eat lunch, and they were not
2 allowed to come inside out of the rain.
3 And in fact, on one day two workers
4 seeking refuge from the rain sat in the back
5 of a truck, the truck malfunctioned, and they
6 were both crushed to death in the back of that
7 truck.
8 And as egregious as that was, what
9 followed next by the City of Memphis was
10 worse. They refused to compensate those two
11 workers or their families for the loss of
12 their lives, not providing them the money to
13 even give them a decent burial. And that
14 finally led those workers to rise up and go on
15 strike.
16 And that became a crisis in the
17 City of Memphis, that this group of workers,
18 this ragtag group of workers, would actually
19 go on strike and threaten sanitation services
20 in the City of Memphis.
21 And Dr. King left Washington, where
22 he was advocating on the Poor People's
23 Movement, fighting for civil rights for
24 everybody, and he went to Memphis to assist
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1 those workers. And it was there where he was
2 killed.
3 Now, as Senator Larkin said, I was
4 too young to know Dr. Martin Luther King. And
5 I didn't have the privilege that Senator
6 Hassell-Thompson had to have ever met him. I
7 read about him in the history books.
8 But I was a young activist in an
9 AFSCME local myself, and in 1993 I got on a
10 bus with thousands of other people and we went
11 for the 30th anniversary of the March on
12 Washington.
13 And I remember that day. It was
14 brutally hot. It was about 105 degrees, and
15 you know what Washington is like in the
16 summertime. The humidity is brutal.
17 And I sat there on the lawn and I
18 looked out. Three million people had come for
19 that anniversary. People Senator Larkin's
20 age, who experienced it the first time, who
21 lived through Dr. King, met him, heard his
22 message live, didn't read about him in the
23 history books. People who were there who then
24 brought their grandchildren, they wanted them
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1 to see a piece of history.
2 And the message of Dr. King was so
3 crystal-clear then as I sat there and I looked
4 out and I saw 3 million people from all walks
5 of life, every race, every creed, every color.
6 Rich people, poor people. Working people.
7 Unemployed people. People interested in
8 economic justice and social justice and
9 equality for all.
10 His message was alive that day on
11 the Mall, and his message was alive on
12 November 4th when Barack Obama was elected to
13 be President of the United States. His
14 message echoes through him. We saw that at
15 the polls when we saw people come from every
16 race, creed, color, walk of life and economic
17 status, to vote for hope and change and a
18 message of equality.
19 And a message that Dr. King started
20 put us on a path on a campaign that we have
21 not yet accomplished, as Senator Parker said
22 and Senator Diaz has said. But we are on our
23 way. His message is alive. It's alive here
24 in this chamber, and it will be alive next
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1 week when Barack Obama takes the oath of
2 office.
3 And it will be alive in all of us
4 as long as we remember Dr. King's commitment
5 to civil rights, workers' rights, women's
6 rights, and the rights of all Americans.
7 Thank you.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
9 you, Senator Savino.
10 Senator Robach.
11 SENATOR ROBACH: Yes, very
12 briefly, Mr. President.
13 I too rise to proudly support this
14 resolution. We've heard a lot of great things
15 about what Dr. King accomplished and did, and
16 there is no doubt about that. He made our
17 country better, not just for some but for all.
18 But I want to just take a minute.
19 I think what is so outstanding about Dr. King
20 is really, as much as his accomplishments, the
21 character of the individual. We constantly
22 look for heroes today and sometimes people say
23 there are none. He clearly overcame a lot to
24 accomplish what he wanted to and let nothing
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1 stop him.
2 Sometimes we say actions speak
3 louder than words. Dr. King was truly someone
4 who was not only the great word, from the "I
5 Have A Dream" speech, to judging someone by
6 the content of their character, not the color
7 of their skin or what their ethnicity was --
8 even some of the most simplistic quotes, but
9 the great ones: Never the wrong time to do
10 the right thing -- but he was even more so a
11 person of action.
12 When you think of what he had to
13 endure -- he wasn't violent, he didn't strike
14 back, he took the abuse, he took jailing, he
15 took being spit at, had rocks thrown at him,
16 even in some cases probably treated poorly
17 even by those in authority to get the result
18 he wanted.
19 He was about action, about truth,
20 and about getting a result and sometimes I
21 think that, besides human relations and race
22 relations, was a true example to everyone in
23 society to try and follow those ideals,
24 whether we're in this chamber, whether we're
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1 outside in the outside world.
2 And I'll end with this. While
3 people have talked about a lot more work to
4 get done, I think this little equation in my
5 family, or little story, epitomizes where
6 we've gotten to.
7 I'm usually one of the last people
8 on the curve and fought even getting cable
9 television from my wife for years, and this is
10 probably even going back maybe a little bit
11 more than ten years ago, because I think at
12 the time my kids were about 8, 6 and 4.
13 And I had the new cable television,
14 and I had the History Channel on, and they
15 were showing this documentary about civil
16 rights, and they were cutting from Rosa Parks
17 to Martin Luther King and some of the things
18 that transpired in this movement, and they cut
19 to a scene from Democratic Convention in the
20 '60s where the police were spraying and
21 whacking people with these long -- not billy
22 clubs, these long sticks that we don't have
23 that in the police department where I live.
24 And I was sitting on my couch, and
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1 my kids were kind of playing behind me, and I
2 was going through mail and kind of watching
3 this, and I looked up, and here's all three of
4 my children with their hands on the couch,
5 their eyes this big.
6 And they're used to playing sports,
7 going to school, going to church with people
8 of every group. And they said to me, "Dad,
9 what country is that in where this is
10 occurring?"
11 Because in their world, because of
12 progress of civil rights, Martin Luther King,
13 they couldn't believe at that young age that
14 that, in the '60s, before they were born,
15 could even happen in this country.
16 So while there's work to be done,
17 the character of Martin Luther King, his
18 message, still important today, has made a
19 great difference.
20 And it's very fitting that we not
21 only have this resolution but take the time
22 out as a state to honor this man of character
23 and continue to try and follow that path to
24 make our world fairer and our state fairer,
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1 not just for one but for all.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
3 you very much, Senator Robach.
4 Senator Adams.
5 SENATOR ADAMS: Thank you,
6 Mr. President. I want to briefly also rise.
7 And I thank Senator Robach for that
8 story, because that is a fascinating story.
9 There's a movie out now called
10 "Gran Torino," with Clint Eastwood. And if
11 history will reflect on the movie as years go
12 on, the only name you would think of is Clint
13 Eastwood, without realizing that no great
14 dramatic event can take place without a
15 supporting cast and without co-stars.
16 And Dr. King lived during a period
17 that he lived out a very serious drama that
18 took place on the stage of American history.
19 But we would do a great disservice and we
20 would turn that drama into a Shakespearean
21 tragedy if we reflect on Dr. King as an
22 individual without realizing that it was not
23 about King.
24 And nothing would hurt his name
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1 more, if he was alive today, than to hear
2 people merely point to him as an individual.
3 King transformed a name, and it became a
4 movie. There were a countless number of
5 people who were around him of all ethnicities.
6 There was a countless number of men and women,
7 black, white, Asian, Jew, Gentile, that
8 participated in the movement. So it wasn't
9 only about King.
10 Yes, this was a man that lived
11 during a particular time and period of time.
12 But it was Americans all across this country
13 that decided they wanted to move the country
14 in the right direction.
15 They decided that we had within our
16 physical lungs the wind capacity to blow not
17 only the country but the globe in the
18 direction that it should go in, from the
19 Vietnam War to the fight that was taking place
20 in South Africa.
21 This was more than King. King may
22 be the name that's associated with the
23 individual, but the movement was an American
24 movement. And all of our children benefited.
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1 It's more than just Barack Obama
2 becoming President, but it's Hillary Clinton
3 becoming the Secretary of State. It is the
4 countless number of doors that were opened
5 because America decided they wanted to move in
6 the right direction.
7 So King symbolizes that. And he
8 may receive the Oscar for his great
9 performance on the real live stage of American
10 history. But if we ignore those co-stars, if
11 we ignore those supporting casts, if we ignore
12 the rabbis that rode the buses to integrate
13 our highways, if we ignore the young Jewish
14 college students that sat at lunch counters,
15 if we ignore the young Asian students that
16 came and participated in the Freedom March, if
17 we ignore all the multiculture of individuals
18 that decided this is a great nation, then we
19 will do more harm than good to the legacy of
20 Dr. King.
21 Because the legacy of Dr. King is
22 the legacy of America waking up and stating
23 that we no longer want to live in the
24 nightmarish reality of living in a segregated
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1 society, we want to live in a country that
2 symbolizes what's great about the greatest
3 race alive, and that's the human race.
4 That's what the King phenomenon
5 represents. Not just a man that was put in
6 the ground when he was assassinated, but a
7 person who gave life to a concept and a
8 principle that this is a country that could
9 prick the consciousness of the globe and send
10 a strong symbol of what we represent as a
11 country.
12 Anyone can make a buck, but it
13 takes special people to make a difference.
14 And Dr. King was part of those special people
15 in this country that decided to make a
16 difference in this country.
17 So we can have a love affair with
18 the individual, but let's not turn that love
19 affair into a Shakespearean tragedy that we
20 ignore what he represented. He represented
21 what was best about America. And now we have
22 the great possibility of creating people with
23 that concept with the children of today, so
24 that we can raise those who have the concept
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1 of King.
2 King is not an ethnicity. It is
3 not creed, it is deed. Skin pigmentation
4 won't tell you the character of a person. The
5 possibility of being a Dr. King can come from
6 any corner of this country and has nothing to
7 do with being black, it has nothing to do with
8 being white. It has everything to do with the
9 color we don't see, and that's the color of
10 our soul.
11 The greatest mark we can make on
12 his 80th birthday is to send a clear message:
13 It wasn't about one man, it was about a great
14 country coming alive, and that's the country
15 called America.
16 Thank you.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
18 you, Senator Adams.
19 Senator Espada.
20 SENATOR ESPADA: Thank you,
21 Mr. President.
22 I too rise because the moment
23 cannot escape me. As a child of the '60s, as
24 a person like Senator Diaz, I was born in
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1 Puerto Rico as a citizen of this great
2 country, from a multiracial background.
3 I rise to share that as a young
4 monolingual child moving into the South Bronx,
5 and viewing a black-and-white TV and the
6 images and the horror that we saw on those TV
7 sets with the events that were unfolding in
8 the South, and indeed as silently as it's kept
9 in the history books, it registered vividly in
10 our memories in our own neighborhoods. Not
11 only within one ethnic group, but the
12 dominance and the denial of humanity of people
13 that grew up together but happened to have a
14 different pigmentation.
15 So I rise to highlight that denial
16 of humanity itself. It's what we all witness,
17 and it's what allows us today to transcend in
18 a very transformative way, detail all the
19 examples of accomplishments in this chamber,
20 in these United States and throughout.
21 But I do want to speak to the issue
22 of intolerance, whether we're
23 African-American, Latino, white.
24 President-elect Obama, our 44th
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1 President, has become President because a
2 majority white nation has decided that that is
3 the proper course of events and that is the
4 leadership that could take us into a better
5 day.
6 Similarly, these chambers, majority
7 white, this New York State, majority white,
8 has also registered its valuable franchise in
9 the embodiment of an African-American Governor
10 and an African-American Majority Leader.
11 But where is the intolerance then
12 for us right now? Where is the denial of
13 humanity?
14 And I point to millions upon
15 millions of people that because of their
16 citizenship status in this country right now,
17 family members are being split apart.
18 Children that are citizens of this great
19 nation will lose their parents, are losing
20 their parents daily because their parents are
21 undocumented; they must leave their families
22 behind.
23 They come in in the middle of the
24 night, like cattle in trucks, crossing
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1 artificial lines that divide nation against
2 nation.
3 And so yes, there will be a
4 drumbeat of many changes. But the drumbeat to
5 finally hone in on the incredible denial of
6 humanity for millions upon millions of people
7 who are from Mexico, Santo Domingo, Latin
8 America, and Europe -- that is our great
9 challenge this coming decade and for decades
10 to come, as we hone in on the real issue of
11 what is humane and are we a tolerant people.
12 And so that is the great challenge
13 as I see it and as I'm sure the great Martin
14 Luther King, the visionary that he was, would
15 see it, the denial of humanity to so many
16 people and so many families.
17 Together, we must view that, we
18 must challenge that, we must tolerate that,
19 and we'll move it ahead to full citizenship of
20 the human race.
21 Thank you so very much.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
23 you, Senator Espada.
24 Are there any other Senators
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1 wishing to be heard?
2 On the resolution, all those in
3 favor, aye.
4 (Response of "Aye.")
5 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN:
6 Opposed, nay.
7 (No response.)
8 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: The
9 resolution is adopted.
10 At the request of the sponsor, the
11 resolution is open for multisponsorship.
12 Anyone not wishing to be on the resolution
13 please signify that at the bench.
14 Senator Klein.
15 SENATOR KLEIN: Mr. President, at
16 this time I move for adoption of the
17 Resolution Calendar.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: All
19 those in favor of adopting the Resolution
20 Calendar in its entirety please signify by
21 saying aye.
22 (Response of "Aye.")
23 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN:
24 Opposed, nay.
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1 (No response.)
2 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: The
3 Resolution Calendar is adopted.
4 Senator Klein.
5 SENATOR KLEIN: Mr. President, in
6 consultation with Senator Skelos, I now hand
7 up the following Minority appointments to the
8 Senate Finance Committee.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: To be
10 filed in the Journal.
11 Is there any further business,
12 Senator Klein?
13 Senator Klein.
14 SENATOR KLEIN: Mr. President,
15 would you please recognize Senator Maziarz.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN:
17 Senator Maziarz.
18 SENATOR MAZIARZ: Thank you very
19 much, Mr. President.
20 Just very briefly. Everybody
21 starts off by saying "very briefly," and then
22 they talk and talk and talk.
23 But, Mr. President, I think, very
24 importantly, by the next time we gather here
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1 and meet, we will have a new President of the
2 United States.
3 And on behalf of the Republican
4 Conference in this house, we want to
5 congratulate and give our best wishes to the
6 new President, President Barack Obama. He is
7 taking over our country at a time of war, at a
8 time of economic collapse, and clearly will
9 need the support of all Americans.
10 And I think it is very important to
11 note and to congratulate one of our own
12 members, just one, who was there from day one
13 with President-elect Obama.
14 Now, Senator Adams thinks he was
15 there from day one, but he hesitated. He
16 hesitated. He waited for that call from Bill
17 Clinton that never came.
18 (Laughter.)
19 SENATOR MAZIARZ: Unfortunately,
20 he's not in the chamber now, but Senator Bill
21 Perkins, I'm sure this is a very special day
22 for him next Tuesday, because he was truly
23 there from day one.
24 And that call from Bill Clinton
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1 never came for him either, but -- so don't
2 feel bad, Eric.
3 Thank you, Mr. President.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: Thank
5 you, Senator Maziarz.
6 Senator Klein.
7 SENATOR KLEIN: Thank you,
8 Mr. President.
9 Mr. President, there being no
10 further business to come before the Senate, I
11 move we adjourn until Wednesday, January 21st,
12 at 3:00 p.m.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT BRESLIN: There
14 being no further business at the desk, on
15 motion, the Senate stands adjourned until
16 Wednesday, January 21st, at 3:00 p.m.,
17 intervening days being legislative days.
18 (Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the
19 Senate adjourned.)
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