SENATOR MENENDEZ'S REMARKS IN HONOR OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY:

This year has been a year to remember... a year of upheaval and progress, both here at home and around the world... a year of incivility in our politics, violent conflicts raging in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and economic uncertainty in every nation -- and yet we believe, as Dr. King did, that from the chaos, from the uncertainty, a new hope and a better world will arise...

The sad bitter fact is this year has reminded us that we need Martin Luther King, Jr. again - more than ever. We need his words, his inspiration, his message, and his direction ALL OVER AGAIN.

We live in a world where we hear people demonized - ALL OVER AGAIN... We hear the same corrosive, hateful speech - ALL OVER AGAIN... We hear people demonized for being poor, for having no job, for being too religious or not religious enough. We look around the world and see women demonized for being women, for choosing to have children, or not have children.

We hear people demonized for the color of their skin - ALL OVER AGAIN...for where they live or who they love - ALL OVER AGAIN...

We hear - in more and more places - more and more people and families demonized for being undocumented - too foreign - too different. We hear the sad vitriol of those who wear their bigotry as a badge of honor, proclaim it as their patriotic duty.

Martin Luther King taught us that selfishness, our lack of compassion, judgmental harshness, unfeeling cruelty are a rising wave of dark, corrosive, poisonous water that can sweep across a people and threaten our humanity and our civilization.

This Martin Luther King Day our message should be clear. It's the message my mother taught me growing up in an immigrant family in a tenement in Union City, hoping to have a chance... hoping for the best in people so that I could do my best and achieve my dreams. It's a message of hope and tolerance...a message that says: I don't care who you are... I don't care about the color of your skin... I don't care where you live or where you came from... I don't care what you do... It's the message that there is a fundamental decency that is alive in all of us, part of the human spirit and the human condition...and, this year, too many times, day-by-day, newscast-by newscast -- in too many places around the world and here at home -- we seem to be losing that decency. We need Dr. King's inspiration, his spirit, and his words now more than ever... We need to hear him - ALL OVER AGAIN.

The year began with the immolation of a young man in Tunis whose cry for freedom echoed throughout the Middle East, and in every capital of every nation around the world... It was one man's tragic fate that planted the seed of an Arab Spring that saw the first green-shoots of democracy rise from the long winter of dictatorship and discontent through the shifting sand of the Middle East... but it also brought uncertainty, renewed ethnic violence, and the darkest demons in the human spirit. It has given new life to old conflicts... Sunnis against Shia in Iraq... Muslims against Coptic Christians in Egypt... and anti-Semitism right here in our own backyard with the senseless fire bombing last week of Temple Beth El in Rutherford. It is that kind of hatred - that kind of violence - that Dr. King preached against and prayed against.

We need his words and message --- ALL OVER AGAIN - when he said: "It is still one of the tragedies of human history that 'the children of darkness' are frequently more determined and zealous than the 'children of light.'"

In this past year we dedicated a new monument in his honor - in the shadow of the great monuments to freedom and democracy - where it belongs...a monument to the life and legacy of the man whose words are carved in stone to inspire new generations of Americans to take up the cause of freedom and justice in his name - so we can read them - ALL OVER AGAIN...

And so we gather today to honor his memory in uncertain times. Our challenge is to remember his words and find in them the certainty that he knew...the certainty of the goodness and hope in the human spirit...the certainty of justice, tolerance, and freedom...the certainty that comes with faith, wisdom, and the power in all of us to judge others not by our differences but by our common interests and concerns.

He believed in the spirit of community in all of us when he said: "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

He said, "Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness."

On the scourge of racism Dr. King was always most eloquent - and we need to hear his words - ALL OVER AGAIN...

He carried the banner of tolerance saying: "There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance."

We need to hear his words for immediate action on Civil Rights and Human Rights - ALL OVER AGAIN... He said: "Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say: Wait. But when we have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kill, and kick your Black brothers and sisters... when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of nobodiness - then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."

His words moved us. His life changed us - and we need the vision of Dr. King - ALL OVER AGAIN.

So we gather again this year, in 2012 -- to celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, a true leader, a man who would not wait -- who stood his ground against the odds -- against those who would turn dogs and fire hoses on women and children, who would beat them and arrest them simply because of their race - and yet remained, at his core, a man of peace.

He said in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964: "I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land. 'And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.' I still believe we shall overcome."

We need to hear those words - ALL OVER AGAIN.

They were his weapon and shall remain our symbol of America's hope, our symbol of America's promise, but they are also a symbol of the promise of democracy and freedom around the world. Dr. King would have understood the Arab Spring in the context of the pitfalls and promise of the human spirit and the human heart... We need to hear his prescient observation about alienation in society - ALL OVER AGAIN...

He said, "When culture is degraded and vulgarity enthroned, when the social system does not build security but induces peril, inexorably the individual is impelled to pull away from a soulless society. The process produces alienation - perhaps the most pervasive and insidious development in contemporary society."

Those words were prophetic in their description of those in today's world who have become so alienated that they would choose martyrdom and murder over tolerance, life, and liberty. His words have never burned as brightly as they do right now, and perhaps the truth is we need to hear them - ALL OVER AGAIN -- lest we forget what he taught us.

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day 2012 - let it be our challenge to remember his words.Let us remember Dr. King today and every day for his wisdom, his words, and for leading us to a better place.

Thank you very much.

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