Barack Obama

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama on Chicago Violence

Sunday, July 15, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Chicago, IL - U.S. Senator Barack Obama today delivered the following remarks at the Vernon Park Church of God in Chicago:

As prepared for delivery:

I asked to come here because I wanted to talk with you about the spate of violence that's been robbing this city's children of their future. In this last school year, thirty-two Chicago Public School students were killed, and even more since the school year ended. This past week alone, two teens were shot in a South Side school yard.

I've got a 9 year-old and a 6 year-old daughter. I left them at home today to come here. And I cannot imagine not having them with me. I know that all these children are in a better place. But I cannot imagine what the parents must be going through, and my prayers and thoughts are with them. I understand that some of these parents and other relatives are becoming activists against violence - and that inspires me and it gives me hope.

And what's also brought me hope during this dark time has been the outpouring of concern from every corner of this city. I want to commend local elected officials like Mayor Daley, State's Attorney Devine, and Congressman Bobby Rush, all of whom have been working tirelessly to stop the killings. And I want to salute Reverend Jesse Jackson and Father Michael Pfleger, who were recently arrested outside a gun shop as part of a protest to stop the violence. They and all the other ministers and local leaders who've been coming together ought to be praised for their efforts.

It's inspiring to see what they're doing. But it cannot stop our heartbreak.

Our playgrounds have become battlegrounds. Our streets have become cemeteries. Our schools have become places to mourn the ones we've lost.

In Room 104 at Avalon Park Elementary School, an empty chair is pushed against the wall in memory of Quinton Jackson, the 8th grader who used to sit there, and who was stabbed to death a few months ago.

In one Chicago public school, a teacher was calling attendance and when she got to the name of a particular student who wasn't there and had missed a lot of classes, she asked if anyone knew where he was. And the answer she got was, "He's dead."

We know about 13-year old Schanna Gayden, who was buying a snack at a fruit stand in a park half a block away from her home when she was gunned down - caught in the crossfire of a gang war. "Where can I move in this city," her mother asked, "where my remaining children will be safe?"

We know about 16-year old Blair Holt, who was riding home from school on a CTA bus when a gunman opened fire. And as the bullets flew, and Blair was shot, he pulled a friend onto a seat and saved her life. And as he was driven to the hospital, where he would pass away a short time later, he asked the paramedics to tell his parents that he loved them.

There are so many stories like these. And they're being told not just in Chicago but in cities all across this country. From South Central, L.A., to Newark, New Jersey, there's an epidemic of violence that's sickening the soul of this nation. For the third year in a row, violent crime and murder are on the rise nationwide. As we've all borne witness to here in Chicago, this is partly due to the rise of gang violence. The FBI says there are now more gang members on our nation's streets than police officers.

The violence is unacceptable, and it's got to stop.

Part of the solution has to come from government. And government has to care. Each year, thousands of guns are sold without the dealer doing a background check. And many unscrupulous dealers are exploiting the system by operating full-fledged businesses without following federal gun laws. To make sure guns don't end up in the wrong hands, we need to close the gun show loophole and tighten our background checks by improving the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. And we need to make the expired Assault Weapon ban permanent. A couple of weeks ago, cops found an AK-47 near a West Side School. That type of weapon belongs on a battlefield, not on our streets.

We need to ask why it is that at a time when we're seeing rising crime rates across the country, at the very moment we need more police officers on our streets, this Administration is trying to take them off by decimating the COPS program. If we can spend billions of dollars on tax breaks for folks who didn't need them and didn't ask for them, we can afford to put police officers in the cities that couldn't need them more.

We need to be doing more to combat gangs and gang violence. That's something we know how to do. We know that when we improve collaboration between police and probation officers to track gang activity, that helps. We know that when we involve the whole community - from schools to churches, from ex-gang members to local residents - it makes a big difference. So we need to invest more in programs like CeaseFire here in Chicago that are having some success in these areas.

And we need to reach these kids before the gangs do. So let's provide prenatal care and preschool because we know that kids who start behind in the race of life have trouble catching up. And let's also invest in after-school programs because when our children are taking part in those programs, they're less likely to be out on the streets where they can turn to violence and get mixed up with gangs. Let's invest at least as much in our communities as we do in the prisons in Cook County and all across the nation.

Government has to step up. We need to express our collective anger through collective action. But the truth is, there's only so much government can do. And then what? What do we do when the cycle of violence continues? What do we do when we see another child die? And another? And another?

We can blame each other and we can blame our leaders. We can grow hard, and we can grow angry, and we can get cynical. And we can become numb and indifferent to the gunshots and the funerals, and we can keep on living in fear.

But I'm tired of going to funerals. I'm tired of marching. I'm tired of giving speeches like this year after year after year.

During the course of this past school year, the number of public school students who were killed in this city was higher than the number of soldiers from this whole state who were killed in Iraq. Think about that. At a time when we're spending $275 million a day on a war overseas, we're neglecting the war that's being fought in our own streets.

So we know we need a change in government, but with God's help and guidance, we're going to have to have a change of attitude too. We're going to have to have a change of heart. We're going to have to save ourselves.

There are too many young men out there who have gone down the wrong path. But all these young men, they started out as boys. And all of us know them, we've seen them, and when they're babies, they are as bright and as beautiful and as loving as any other child on God's green earth. But then something happens to them. A darkness comes over them. Their heart hardens. And they lose a sense of hope. They don't have a sense of self-respect. They don't have a sense of values or dignity. They don't believe there's anything more out there than what they see around them.

And there's a reason they go out and shoot each other. It's because they don't love themselves. And the reason they don't love themselves is that we are not loving them enough. Or at least we're not showing our love enough. We're not paying attention to them. We're not reading to them. We're not sitting down with them and talking to them. We're not guiding them. We're not disciplining them.

We've got work to do. We're either raising those boys, or we're not raising those boys. But either way, we're responsible for each and every one of them. And if we don't change how we raise our children, then it doesn't matter how many more programs come in here, it doesn't matter how much more money comes in here, it doesn't matter how many politicians make speeches, it doesn't matter how much we pray - it doesn't make any difference, if we don't change how we raise our children.

So I'm going to do my job. I'm going keep fighting for more money and more programs. I'll sit down with folks in Chicago. And I'll sit down with folks in Washington. And I'll sit down with everybody I can think of sitting down with to figure out how we can get more programs in our community. But that money and those programs will not make any difference unless we have a change of heart.

Let me close by saying this. A while back, I was down in Birmingham, Alabama, and I went to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Some of you may know about that church. That's the church where four little girls went to their maker when somebody put a bomb there one Sunday morning in September 1963.

And when you walk into the church, there's a clock that's frozen in the back, alongside the portraits of these four little girls. It's frozen at 10:22 a.m. And I took a tour of the church, and you can still see the scars on the building where the bomb went off more than forty years ago. And I talked to the pastor, and I talked to some of the deacons, and I looked at the portraits of the girls, and then I sat down on those pews, and I said a prayer.

And I remembered reading what Dr. Martin Luther King had said when he eulogized those four little girls. He had quoted from Isaiah 11, where it says: "And a little child shall lead them." And he prayed that those girls would lead the nation from what he called the "low road of man's inhumanity to man to the high road of peace and brotherhood." And his prayer was partly answered. Because their deaths catalyzed a movement. They didn't just bring about a change in laws. It wasn't just the Civil Rights Act passing or the Voting Rights Act passing. Their deaths struck the conscience of the nation. They changed how Americans thought and felt not just about their own children, but about other people's children and about each other.

So I say Dr. King's prayer today - that the children we've lost shall lead us. That they can lead us to undergo that same transformation - a transformation of the human heart. And I hope that when we leave here, and we go out tomorrow, that everybody thinks about their own responsibilities and what they can do to make a difference. And I'll do that too. And if we can come together and take it upon ourselves to end this violence, we'll not just be honoring the children we've lost, we'll not just be caring for our own souls, we'll be building a movement that can lead us one day to the high road of peace and brotherhood that Dr. King dreamed about.

God bless you.