Pres. Clinton at African-American Religious Leaders Reception (1998)

uh thank you all thank you thank you thank you thank you very much thank you thank you all and welcome to the east room of the white house we are delighted to have you all here we know that many who are planning to be here have unfortunately been re-routed because of the weather and we're getting calls from detroit and boston and places like that and so we're very sorry that anyone was in any way inconvenienced but we're delighted that all of you who traveled to be with us are here today it's a particular pleasure to welcome you to the white house and to share this moment with you when we're so fortunate bill and i to have our friends spending the night with us it's sort of a just a slumber party you know there are so many distinguished people here i could literally introduce the entire audience but if you'll permit me i will do it by category because i couldn't possibly take the time away from hearing from the two presidents to introduce everyone but i do want to welcome all of the clergy who are here i want to welcome the members of the president's advisory board on historical black colleges and universities i want to welcome members of the president's cabinet and white house staff i also want to welcome all members of congress and as i came in i noticed we also have some former members of congress with us as well and all of you who are friends and supporters of the goals of this president and also have been friends and supporters of the goals of president mandela as well we are delighted to have you with us but it is a special pleasure to have the newlyweds uh with us and uh we um we feel so fortunate uh to have gotten to know them over the last several years uh certainly we have been blessed by knowing president mandela for a number of years and i've heard about gracia michelle for many years and have followed her work that she has carried on with such distinction and courage and have been just so pleased that because of her relationship with the president of a certain country she and i were able to spend time together during our official visit uh to south africa and then to welcome her back as a friend here tonight it is a special honor also for me to introduce someone who has carried on the legacy of her father and has carried on the best of what represents not just of america's ideals and values but humanities always in her own voice and with her own sense of purpose since the ripe old age of 17 when she spoke at the united nations about apartheid it has been clear that reverend bernice king was put on this earth to preach since that day she has used the power of the spoken and written word to inspire young people to build bridges of understanding between citizens of all races to tackle the lingering evils of racism and poverty throughout the world and to give to all people a faith that they too can work to make her father's dream a reality in their own lives so it is with a great deal of pleasure and honor that i introduce the reverend bernice king i first and foremost uh want to give all praise to god and my lord and savior jesus christ for this opportunity and the holy spirit for giving me the strength and the power to stand to president clinton to first lady hillary clinton to president mandela and mrs michelle to ambassador son and ambassador joseph and to all of you distinguished brothers and sisters i must admit that this is indeed a great honor and a privilege for me this moment to be in the presence of a lot of greatness great political leaders great educational leaders great uh religious leaders men and women of god great bishops and prognosticators of the gospel of jesus christ but especially to be in the presence of the person of president nelson mandela who in many ways epitomizes the essence of who my father was and so i thank god for this privilege and opportunity to be in his presence and to say just a few brief words i was asked to say a few brief words and i don't think they realized but they asked a baptist preacher to say a few brief words and i'm going to try to to follow a little bit of the protocol as much as possible as i look upon president mandela and think also of my own father i'm reminded of the powerful words of that great abolitionist and beloved statesman frederick douglass who said where there is no struggle there can be no progress both of these men in their struggle against racist regimes were critical in the social advancement of the human race and presidents mandela's presence here evokes many memories for me in particular of my experience when i was privileged to attend his inauguration several years ago as i traveled to south africa i must admit that i was on one mission a singular mission because i wanted to better understand how a man who had spent 27 years in prison was really doing at that time it had been my entire life and so i could not even imagine being imprisoned for 27 years all of my life and as i traveled there i was looking for signs in fact of bitterness and anger and as i looked at him and listened to him give his inaugural speech because god has gifted me sometimes with the spirit of discernment i asked god to allow me to see into the heart of this man and god allowed me to be able to see that there were no traces of bitterness and anger after 27 years of being imprisoned i believe unjustifiably so and that indeed is awesome to say the least and as i thought about it i thought about my father's words that unearned suffering is redemptive i thought about even the words of jesus christ or the experience of jesus christ that you must first go through the crucifixion by way of the crucifixion in order to get to the resurrection and i experienced a powerful resurrection of sorts as i watched and listened to president nelson mandela no one can deny that his suffering helped to redeem and transform south africa for indeed the personal suffering that he endured coupled with the personal transformation that i'm sure he underwent became the fuel that transformed and embattled south africa into a reconciling south africa this reconciliation has been characterized by love and an indomitable spirit of forgiveness and understanding which president mandela carried into his leadership as the president of the new south africa we've witnessed his powerful spirit of forgiveness his powerful spirit of understanding and reconciliation as he even invited his own jailers to his inauguration and as he set up the truth and reconciliation commission in that country i often think what it would mean if this nation would follow that example and set up its own if we would set up our own truth and reconciliation commission so that we can continue the unfinished reconciliation work of my father martin luther king jr certainly we have a great need for healing and reconciliation in this country and it begins with forgiveness now i have the distinguished honor of presenting our president and i realize that tonight is not about our president's dilemma but i wish to briefly say and go on record as such that our judeo-christian heritage calls for us to allow god to handle the matter remembering how he handled king david for when king david was confronted with his own sin by the prophet nathan king david was heard to say in similar fashion as our president has been heard to say i have sinned against the lord and the prophet remarked back the lord also has put away your sin david remained king um oh he remained king while god fine-tuned both his circumstance and his perspectives god sheltered him as he purged his appetites and made clear the devastating consequences of returning to the old path ultimately god is the searcher of all men's hearts and i know a little bit about god just a little bit and i know that he can handle his business and he can handle it alone for he's god and he's got all by himself and he doesn't need anyone's help and so mr president because i know that none of us is perfect because we have all everybody everybody from the highest to the lowest from the news media to capitol hill we have all from pulpits to the pews we have all sinned and fallen short of god's glory and so i and i believe there are many others in this room who forgive you and i wish to say that it's time i think for us to leave our president alone oh knowing that as we leave him alone we are leaving him in trusted hands we're leaving him in the hands of an able god who shaped fashioned and created him and can adequately correct and fully restore him for god is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or even think and we're also leaving him alone to his family who will help in the healing process and i close with this and bring the president on words of the holy scripture that speak this way out of the book of colossians therefore as god's chosen people holy and dearly loved clothe yourselves with compassion kindness humility gentleness and patience bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another forgive as the lord forgave you and over all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity and let the peace of christ rule in your hearts since as members of one body you were called to peace and be thankful god is beckoning us i believe all of us in the world at large this nation and his people to repent forgive that we might be forgiven by him and he might speak to us and heal our land i introduce a great leader a great world leader as we witnessed again on yesterday and a great statesman our president president clinton let us thank you very much thank you thank you thank you thank you very much thank you thank you thank you very much the the scripture says it's more blessed to give than to receive i was sitting here thinking in this case i wish i were on the giving rather than the receiving end it is all it is difficult to absorb the depth and breadth of what i have heard and what you have given to me through the words of reverend king and through your expression and i thank you i thank you also for what you have given to our country i thank the members of congress and the administration the educators the ministers the ambassadors all of you who are here and our friends from south africa hillary and i are delighted to have president mandela and gracia here we thank you russia for your concern for the children who have been made victims of war by being impressed into combat as children and the scars they was bear from it and we thank you mr president for being the person we'd all like to be on our best day i would like you all to think for a few moments before i bring president mandela on not about the terrible unjust sacrifice of his 27 years in prison but about what he's done with the years since he got out of prison not about how he purged his heart of bitterness and anger while still a prisoner but how he resists every day the temptation to take it up again in the pettiness and meanness of human events in some ways that is all the more remarkable there have been many blessings for hillary and for me far outweighing all the trials of being given the opportunity by the american people to serve in this position and live in this house but certainly one of the greatest ones has been the friendship of this good man and i want to tell you one little story i try never to betray any private conversations i have with anybody but i want to tell you this i uh when president mandela once i was talking to him and i i said to him you know i i have listened carefully to everything you have said to how you laid your anger and your bitterness down but on the day you got out of prison hillary and i were living in arkansas in the governor's mansion our daughter was a very young girl i got her up early on a sunday morning and i sat her down on the counter in our kitchen because we had an elevated television and i said chelsea i want you to watch this this is one of the great events of your lifetime and i want you to watch this and she watched president mandela walk down that last road toward freedom after all those years in prison so i said to him one day i said now tell me this i know you invited your jailers to the inauguration and i know how hard you worked on this but weren't you angry one more time when you were walking down that road he said yes briefly i was i don't know if he remembers it he said yes briefly i was and then i remembered i have waited so long for freedom and if my anger goes with me out of this place i will still be their prisoner and i want to be free i want to be free when i say that i say that to set the stage for what is now happening in nelson mandela's life yesterday we were at the united nations and he and i spoke back to back and then we had this luncheon and and uh we were talking about the troubles in congo we were talking about the continuing almost compulsive destructiveness of the people there and all the countries outside trying to get into the act to make sure that whoever they don't like doesn't get a leg up and we were lamenting the colossal waste of human potential in that phenomenally rich country and i thought to myself apartheid is gone in the law in south africa but it is still alive in the heart of nearly everybody on earth in some way or another and here is this man still giving of himself to try to take the apartheid out of the heart of the people of his continent and indeed the people of the world we were talking just before we came down about a mutual friend of ours who's the leader of a country and how he had called and admonished him to try to work through a problem that he has had for too long and so i say i have to say one thing that is slightly amusing about this you know now the president mandela will probably get up here and make some crack about being an old man and how his time's running out and all that the truth is he's leaving office because he feels like he's about 25 years old again and uh he's so happily married he can't be troubled with all these boring affairs of politics this is uh it is but ever i must say it's the only time i've ever known him to misrepresent the facts but that is i'm sure what is going on here but i ask you to think about that every time nelson mandela walks into a room we all feel a little bigger we all want to stand up we all want to cheer because we'd like to be him on our best day but what i would say to you is there is a little bit of apartheid in everybody's heart and in every gnarly knotted distorted situation in the world where people are kept from becoming the best they can be there is an apartheid of the heart and if we really honor this stunning sacrifice of 27 years if we really rejoice in the infinite justice of seeing this man happily married in the autumn of his life if we really are seeking some driven wisdom from the power of his example it will be to do whatever we can however we can wherever we are to take the apartheid out of our own and others hearts ladies and gentlemen the president of south africa thank you thank you president clinton and mrs clinton reverend bernice king distinguished guests and friends when i turned 70 a young lady who is now principal of a leading university in my country came to see me in prison she was blunt and straightforward did not flutter me she didn't say i came to see you here because of my interest in you she said if my father was alive today he would have been 70. and when i read in the papers that you were turning 70 today i thought i should come and see how a man of 70 looks like now i've turned 80. i suspect that many of you came here to see to see what a man of haiti looks like no visit to the united states by a representative of the south african people would be complete without an opportunity to meet with those who are gathered here tonight for us probably on our last official visit to your country it has special meaning and i most sincerely thank our host for making it possible more than friends we are among those on whom history has visited the same pains and deprivation and to have shared our victories the founders of our liberation movement drew deep inspiration at the turn of the century from black america striving under difficult circumstances to fulfill our common aspiration for the restoration of human dignity it is small wonder that the struggle to end aborted drew such strength from here or that we now look to you to work with us as we seek to banish poverty hunger illiteracy and ignorance from our land mr president by embodying your identification with this shared aspirations in the program of your administration have one for yourself a warm place in the heart of the south african people as you witnessed on your visit to our country earlier this year we know that we have your understanding as we seek with the countries of the south to shift the world economic system towards the needs of the poor and the weak we are aware of the national debate that is taking place in this country about the president and it is not our business to interfere in this matter but we do wish to say that president clinton is a friend of south africa and africa and i believe the friend of the great mass of black people and the minorities and the disabled of the united states few leaders of the united states have such a feeling for the position of the black people and the minorities we have often said that our morality does not allow us to desert our friends all right and we would like to say tonight we are thinking of you in this difficult and distracting time in your life two days ago the president of zambia fred addiction phoned me now he's far younger than me i think it's in his 60s and in meetings he always speaks to me with great respect and sometimes when we don't agree and he says now look i'm not convinced mr president of what you're saying but in our custom we never challenge an old man but uh he projected a new image two days ago when he phoned me he did not make a request to me he gave me an instruction and he said madiba i want you to support president clinton he was not speaking for himself he was not speaking for himself and he said he said i'm speaking for the continent of africa when he addressed our parliament he almost brought down the walls of that building when he said we in the united states have been asking a wrong question we have been saying what can we do up for africa that was a wrong question the right question was what can we do with africa that is the man my friend who i respect so much but it clearly is changing american foreign policy to the satisfaction of all those who accepted the united states as a world leader with the biggest economy in the world and he is decisively changing american policy i repeat that i will not interfere in the domestic affairs of this country but you should have seen the way he was received by the general assembly of the united nations the applause was spontaneous and overwhelming all of us rose to our feet when he came in it was the same after he delivered his beach god sent a strong message as to what the world thinks on this note oh the men and women who are there come from every part of the globe they are leaders of thoughts presidents prime ministers foreign ministers and other opinion makers that was the strong message they sent if you judge from the reaction of the national assembly the united states is completely isolated on this question but if our expectations if our fondest prayers and dreams are not realized then we should all bear in mind that the greatest glory of living lies not never falling but in rising every time you fall oh i want to leave you on a high note here i want to tell you a story i've never told the president i have a friend who is a a minister a white minister who was in south africa recently and he was given the chance to meet the president but he was told you'll have to go to the airport if you want to meet the president he said i'll go anywhere to shake his hand so he said i was standing off here waiting for him to come and here comes the president across the lobby of the airport and he said president mandela walked up to this gorgeous little blond-haired blue eyed girl about six years old and my friend went up to hear the conversation and he said to the little girl do you know who i am she said yes you're president mandela and he looked at her and he said if you study hard and learn a lot you can grow up to be president of south africa that's a lot to say after this life remember the point god bless you all thank you wait wait

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Keywords: president, william, bill, jefferson, clinton, nelson, mandela, religion, religious, reception, remark, remarks, speech, white, house, presidential, library, nara, national, archives, and, records, administration

Id: SOSRcF4GCXw

Length: 43min 49sec (2629 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 10 2013