WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, published an oped in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer and spoke on the Senate floor to honor the 50th anniversary of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s historic speech at the University of Cape Town on June 6, 1966. In the op-ed and in his remarks on the floor, Senator Coons discussed some of the challenges facing the United States and South Africa as both countries seek to strengthen democratic institutions and confront legacies of discrimination and inequality.
Full audio and video of the speech is available here: http://bit.ly/1t5qN0i. Full transcript of the speech is below.
The oped can be read here, and the full text is below:
RFK’s message to South Africa – and the U.S.
By Chris Coons
Last week, I led a group of my colleagues on a trip to South Africa. Along with Rep. John Lewis (D., Ga.), a hero of America’s civil rights movement, and Kerry Kennedy, president of RFK Human Rights and daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, we traveled to South Africa to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the senator’s historic “Ripples of Hope” speech at the University of Cape Town.
On June 6, 1966, speaking to a nation struggling through the cruel injustices of apartheid, Kennedy began his speech by describing “a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; . . . a land which was once the importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage.”
Kennedy then paused before concluding, “I refer, of course, to the United States of America.”
As Kennedy made clear, America and South Africa share more than we may realize. While there are fundamental differences between our two countries, we have similar stories to tell and many lessons we can learn from each other.
Our two constitutional democracies have been supported by courageous and principled leaders, but we have both learned that nations do not endure because of individuals – they endure because of institutions.
Today, South Africa’s postapartheid nonracial democracy is struggling to deliver on the promise of its ambitious founding principles and to transform its economy to generate opportunity for all its citizens. Meanwhile, the United States is mired in dysfunctional politics, and significant portions of our population justifiably believe we have failed to make even modest progress on the problems we face.
Our nations share deeply embedded legacies of racial discrimination and division from which we have not yet healed – in fact, civil rights activist James Meredith was shot by a white gunman in Mississippi during Kennedy’s trip to South Africa.
We share complex histories of struggles balancing the roles of violence and nonviolence in seeking justice and equality under the law.
We share flawed criminal justice systems that disproportionately punish our citizens of color, and we share imperfect education systems that don’t do enough to educate and empower them.
We share remarkable constitutions and inspiring foundational documents – South Africa’s Freedom Charter and our own Declaration of Independence – whose soaring principles say powerful things, but whose lived experiences have fallen short.
We each struggle to find the most appropriate way to welcome and incorporate millions of undocumented immigrants and to prevent tensions associated with xenophobia.
Yet despite our common shortcomings, we also share a commitment to democracy framed by strong original documents, respect for the rule of law, and independent judiciaries – institutions created and sustained by the likes of Nelson Mandela and George Washington, who as founding presidents stepped down from their offices willingly out of respect for their constitutions.
We share centuries-long traditions of faith and religion, which were at times twisted into justifications for discrimination and prejudice, but which have also served as the guiding light for the nonviolent efforts to achieve justice. It is these very faith traditions that have inspired some of our most storied leaders, from Congressman Lewis to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
As we look back 50 years, we see that progress is possible, but Kennedy’s observation in 1966 that “humanity sometimes progresses very slowly indeed” remains true.
Today, South Africa, with its independent judiciary, a strong public protector office, and vibrant media, is showing how important civic institutions are to sustaining democracy and preserving the progress of humanity.
In the years to come, the United States and South Africa must look to each other as we continue to heal the damage of racial injustice, reverse growing economic inequality, and protect our evolving experiments in democracy.
While both countries have been blessed with the inspirational leadership of exceptional figures, nations over time cannot rely on the constant presence of such gifted leaders. Nations must endure because of strong institutions. Institutions, in turn, endure because we as individuals try every day to make them a little better.
Two months after he returned to the United States, Kennedy reflected on his Cape Town speech. “I acknowledged the United States, like other countries, still had far to go to keep the promises of our Constitution,” he said. “What was important . . . was that we were trying.”
Twenty-five years later, Nelson Mandela told an American audience, “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”
The people of the United States must keep on trying. The people of South Africa must keep on trying.
We must all keep on trying because, as President Obama said, “action and ideas are not enough. No matter how right, they must be chiseled into law and institutions.”
We have a lot of trying left to do, and from each other, we have much to learn – and much to teach the rest of the world. Let us face these challenges together.
SENATOR CHRIS COONS
REMARKS AS DELIVERED ON THE SENATE FLOOR
50 YEARS AFTER RFK’S “RIPPLES OF HOPE” SPEECH
Madame President, on this exact date a half-century ago, then-Senator Robert F. Kennedy delivered a powerful speech in Cape Town in South Africa; South Africa, a nation that was then struggling through the cruel injustices of apartheid.
It was the conclusion of a remarkable trip to South Africa in which Bobby Kennedy visited the Nobel Peace-prize winning Chief Luthuli; visited Soweto; visited the University of Wits up in Johannesburg; and spoke with students at the University of Cape Town.
And last week, I had the opportunity to help lead a congressional delegation to commemorate Bobby Kennedy’s historic journey and his famous “Ripples of Hope” speech that he delivered in his visit. The trip offered all of us an opportunity to reflect on the parallels between America’s civil rights movement and South Africa’s liberation struggle, and to renew the conversation of reconciliation as both countries face legacies that remain both difficult and unresolved.
More importantly, Madame President, as South Africa and the United States face serious challenges to the very institutions that underpin and preserve our democracies, this trip served as a reminder us that while our constitutional orders may be supported by courageous and principled leaders through critical moments in our history, nations don’t endure because of a few charismatic and historic individuals – they endure because of institutions.
I was honored to be joined on this trip by a bipartisan group of colleagues from the House of Representatives, including, most importantly, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, a hero of America’s own civil rights movement, and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, and five others.
There was also a “Ripples of Hope” delegation that traveled alongside us that included RFK’s children, Kerry Kennedy and Rory Kennedy. Kerry’s now president of the RFK Human Rights foundation, and more than a dozen members of the Kennedy family of several generations, as well as the leaders and some members of the Faith and Politics Institute.
It is Faith and Politics that annually organizes, under the leadership of Congressman John Lewis, the civil rights pilgrimage of members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, House and Senate, who retrace the steps of the famous Selma march, which he helped lead, as well as the pivotal events of both Montgomery and Birmingham at the height of the American civil rights movement. So, these three organizations together – the Faith and Politics Institute; the RFK foundation; and the congressional delegation – met up together in South Africa.
At the time of Bobby Kennedy’s visit 50 years ago, South Africa was deep in the throes of apartheid, with a liberation movement that had been decapitated in the Lilisleaf raid of 1963 and pushed far underground. Black South Africans at that point lived in fear and their leaders were either imprisoned or in exile, and the National Party and South African security forces controlled nearly every state institution. As author Evan Thomas has described it, “nowhere was injustice more stark or the prospect for change bleaker than South Africa in 1966.”
RFK would later write about what he called “the dilemma of South Africa: a land of enormous promise and potential, aspiration and achievement – yet a land also of repression and sadness, darkness and cruelty,” as of 1966. To put it plainly and simply, apartheid was a brutal form of racial subjugation.
In the midst of an environment in which white supremacy was codified by law and most anti-apartheid leaders and stalwarts were imprisoned or on the run, Bobby Kennedy was invited to give the University of Cape Town’s “Day of Affirmation” address.
Kennedy began his speech at Jameson Hall describing, “a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; … a land which once was the importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage.”
RFK then paused before concluding, “I refer, of course, to the United States of America.” As you listen to the audio recording of his speech you can then hear a ripple of recognition and applause that Kennedy, who many thought was introducing his speech about South Africa, was instead recognizing the remarkable parallels between our two nations.
As Kennedy spoke to a large crowd that had waited in the cold for hours, he made it clear with this opening that he came not to preach to the people of South Africa from our supposed position of superiority due to the length of our democratic experiment, but to share and to learn from our common legacies and challenges.
Then and now, the differences between the United States and South Africa are profound and real. Yet Americans and South Africans do share more than we might widely recognize. We have similar stories to tell, and we have many lessons that we can and should learn from each other.
Today, more than twenty years after the end of apartheid, South Africa’s post-apartheid nonracial democracy is struggling to deliver on the promise of its ambitious founding principles, and to transform its economy to generate opportunity for all its citizens. Meanwhile, here in the United States, we are mired in dysfunctional politics, and many Americans justifiably believe we have failed to make even modest progress on the economic and social challenges we face.
Our countries also share a deeply embedded history of racial discrimination and division from which we have not yet healed – a shared struggle exemplified by the fact that fifty years ago, during Kennedy’s trip to South Africa, American civil rights activist James Meredith was shot by a white gunman while he marched for voting rights in Mississippi.
We share complex histories of struggles balancing the role of violence and nonviolence in seeking justice and equality under the law.
We share, today, flawed criminal justice systems that disproportionately punish our citizens of color, and we share, sadly, imperfect education systems that don’t do enough to support them.
We also continue to share, today, a struggle to find the most appropriate way to welcome and incorporate literally millions of undocumented immigrants and to prevent tensions associated with xenophobia, something we’ve seen both here in the United States today and we also heard about in South Africa last week.
Yet despite our common shortcomings, we share remarkable constitutions and inspiring foundational documents, South Africa’s Freedom Charter and our own Declaration of Independence, whose soaring principles say powerful, inspiring things, but whose lived experiences have so far fallen short.
We also share a powerful commitment to democracy framed by the strong original documents, respect for the rule of law, and capable and independent judiciaries – institutions created and sustained by the work of many over hundreds of years, but – where we share also a striking foundational moment – our president George Washington and their president Nelson Mandela, both as founding presidents, stepped down from their offices willingly and set powerful precedents of respect for constitutions and term limits.
We also share the fact that we are deeply religious nations, across all racial backgrounds and all income levels, both South Africa and the United States have deep and long traditions of faith and religion, which have powerfully influenced our public lives. These, of course, are traditions which were at times in the past twisted into justifications for prejudice and racial discrimination, but which also served as guiding lights for the nonviolent efforts to achieve justice and reconciliation.
If you think about it, these shared faith traditions have inspired some of our most powerful leaders.
Congressman John Lewis, who was with us on this trip, who was himself beaten, bloodied, and arrested 40 times in the streets of the south fighting for equality under the law; who led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; who, as the leader of the march on Selma in 1966, encountered state troopers armed with guns, and tear gas, and clubs wrapped in barbed wire – as he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and simply said before the onslaught that later became known as Bloody Sunday, “let us pray.”
We all remember that Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the most important leaders of our civil rights movement, the Baptist preacher and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; who, when imprisoned in a Birmingham jail, wrote that “Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God.”
Similarly, in South Africa, some of their most important leaders were clergymen, and one of the most moving moments for me on our trip was the chance to revisit a fellowship I’ve shared with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for whom I worked, briefly, 30 years ago – Tutu, the Anglican bishop who led the South African Council of Churches and fought for decades against apartheid; who was lifted up and recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize back in 1984 and, many years later, would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom here in the United States; and who ultimately chaired the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which engaged in the very hard work of convening whole committees of both those who committed the atrocities of apartheid and their victims in a disciplined, constitutionally-created nationwide effort at reconciliation. It was Archbishop Desmond Tutu who wrote, “Hate has no place in the house of God.”
Madame President, in both the United States and South Africa, the language used to challenge the unjust structures and actions of the government and civil society at the time were rooted in Biblically-based questions of justice and righteousness – and made possible national conversations about forgiveness and reconciliation.
Some of the most striking and powerful witnesses offered quietly on the sides of our journey were from two Americans who were participants in the Faith and Politics civil rights pilgrimage this year in Charleston, South Carolina. They were survivors of the horrible events at the Emmanuel AME church in Charleston, a tragedy in which relatives and friends were savagely murdered during a Bible reflection prayer session – a tragedy from which two survivors, Felecia and Polly, traveled with us to South Africa last week with the Kennedy delegation. It was many of those who survived that tragic event in Charleston, South Carolina, who just a few days later, in confronting the gunman, were able and willing, out of the depths of their faith, to say publicly, “We have no room for hate. We have to forgive.”
And I’ll remind you that one of the things that is most impressive about Congressman John Lewis, from his own experience in our civil rights movement, was his ability to reconcile and forgive. Decades after a member of the Ku Klux Klan beat John Lewis and many other Freedom Riders in the summer of 1961, the now-United States Congressman John Lewis welcomed a Klansman who had actually beaten him decades before to his office here in Washington, and said, as he’s repeated many times on our civil rights pilgrimage, “I accept your apology. I forgive you.”
One of the most striking aspects of Nelson Mandela’s leadership as the first president of a truly free, nonracial South Africa was his own capacity for forgiveness. Twenty years after he was released from prison, an imprisonment that lasted 27 years and robbed him of his opportunity to be a free man, to see his own children grow up, to be a contributing part of his society – an apartheid imprisonment that took away virtually his entire adult life – twenty years after his release from prison, Mandela invited to dinner at his own home one of his former jailers, a man with whom he had become friends, saying their friendship “reinforced my belief in the essential humanity of even those who had kept me behind bars.”
Think about the depths of that forgiveness. As our own President Obama has put it, referring to Mandela by his familiar name, “it took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well.”
It is individuals like John Lewis and Nelson Mandela who set the example of healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation that may ultimately allow us to move forward from our foundational sins of slavery and discrimination. And it is the powerful witness of those from South Carolina, from the Emmanuel AME church, who have challenged us anew in an era of Black Lives Matter concerns and protests, to redouble our efforts to achieve real repentance by those weigh violence against our racial minorities in the United States and those who still need reconciliation and forgiveness.
Last week, our congressional delegation had a chance to break bread with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and we heard from him discussions about the vital importance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which allowed the people of South Africa to attempt to work together past the bitterness and hatred of apartheid. There is much work undone in South Africa today, as I referenced, but the transformational impact of the TRC, of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is beyond doubt in that it made it possible for both the perpetrators and the victims of apartheid to see each other face to face, and to engage in many acts of contrition and reconciliation.
We had a chance on our trip to South Africa to visit Liliesleaf Farm, just outside of Johannesburg, which was the site where the leaders of the underground anti-apartheid movement, the leaders newly-led by Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu and Andrew Mlangeni, the African National Congress, where all of those leaders were at one time picked up by the South African security police; this was in July 1963. We had a chance to meet with and hear from many of the stalwarts at that stage of the struggle, from Walter Sisulu’s son, Max, from Mlangeni himself – now in his late 80s – about their struggles following the raid and the Rivonia Treason Trials, after which there were life sentences imposed on many of those captured at Liliesleaf.
We also visited Nelson Mandela’s home in Soweto and his jail cell on Robben Island, where he served out 18 years of his very long sentence. And we had a remarkable and moving tour of Robben Island, provided for us by Ahmed Kathrada, who goes by the causal term ‘Kathy,’ who talked with us about his experience on Robben Island, and about how they maintained discipline, how they were able to continue to work together to shore up each others’ spirits, as they coped with year after year of brutal conditions and hard prison labor. One of the most striking things for me was to hear from this man, Mr. Kathrada, the absence of bitterness, the absence of vitriol, after his life, too, was marred by decades of imprisonment by the apartheid regime.
It wasn’t just members of our delegation who had an opportunity to learn from these conversations – it was also many South Africans who had an opportunity to hear from our Congressman, John Lewis, as he spoke passionately in several different settings, both in Johannesburg and in Cape Town, about his experience in our civil rights movement. It was uplifting to see him mobbed afterwards by young South Africans everywhere he went, who wanted to meet with him, hear from him, take pictures with him, and reflect once again on the common and constructive legacies of our two nations.
As we look back at 50 years, we see from the struggles of people like John Lewis and Nelson Mandela that while progress is possible, RFK’s observation that “humanity sometimes progresses very slowly indeed” remains true.
And humanity has much more work to do.
Today in South Africa, over half of the black population lives in poverty – compared to less than one recent of the white population. Average annual household income is over $25,000 for white South Africans – yet barely $4,000 for blacks. South Africa’s unemployment rate is seven percent for whites – and over 30 percent for blacks, and much higher in the townships and for younger South Africans.
Even when black students make it to South Africa’s universities, like the University of Cape Town, they’re much less likely to graduate. I have many more statistics I could quote, but by important measures, inequality between whites and blacks has actually increased since the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994.
But these disparities, Madame President, are not unique to South Africa. A Pew Research Center study found that in 2013 in the United States, white households had a median worth thirteen times greater than that of our African-American households – the largest discrepancy in decades in our country. And our Department of Education recently found that, compared to white students, black students in America are far less likely to have access to preschool and advanced high school courses, are much more likely to be suspended, and are much less likely to complete college.
These divides, sadly, extend to our legal system as well. On average, black men in America receive sentences 20 percent longer than white men who commit identical crimes. The population of my home state of Delaware is 22 percent black – ?yet two-thirds of our prison population is African-American.
Behind all these challenging and difficult statistics lies the very real challenge of how to be true to our foundational values and yet find a path forward that creates both growth and empowerment, opportunity and progress, for the peoples of both our countries.
By any measure, we have more work to do. Echoing the words of Congressman Lewis, we have come a great distance, but we have a great distance further to go.
Madame President, in that June 6th address fifty years ago, Bobby Kennedy described the plane that brought him to South Africa, from which “we could see no national boundaries, no vast gulfs or high walls dividing people from people.”
Today, globalization has proven that the boundaries we build between “us” and “them” – whether by race or religion, party or nationality – are indeed what RFK called them: “illusions of differences.”
Still, we need to find the courage and the strength to tackle these problems, to not fall victim to the forces of apathy and complacency. We must find solutions that work for each country in its own context.
Exactly 50 years ago today, Madame President, Bobby Kennedy told South Africans, “Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and then the total – all of these acts – will be written in the history of this generation.”
That, in some ways, was the enduring power of his best-known quote from that speech, about how each man, each individual, man or woman, who stands up for an ideal, acts to improve the lots of others, or strikes out against injustice, sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and all those ripples in combination can form a wall of water which knocks down even the greatest of impediments to progress and justice, such as the walls of apartheid.
Madame President, it was these very ripples that sent forth hope to all South Africans in 1966, when Bobby Kennedy spoke. It was these ripples that sustained Mandela’s struggle over decades, and that prompted the son of an African immigrant to America to take his first steps towards a career in public service – a decision that ultimately brought him to our presidency today.
It was this same commitment to equality and justice that led me, 30 years ago, to travel to South Africa and work for the Council of Churches there, under the tutelage of both Reverend Paul Verryn and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
And it was this same experience, reflected in Bishop Tutu’s phrase, “Ubuntu,” the distinctly South African idea that, as President Obama has put it, “we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity.”
I met a remarkable range of men and women, young and old, leaders of this generation and the last, in South Africa in this past week, and was reminded in all of our conversations – on Robben Island, in Lilisleaf, with young entrepreneurs in Soweto, with business leaders trying to grow the economy and create opportunity, with those from every background in South Africa – that all of these men and women have fought that fight, sending forth ripples of hope that brought the mighty walls of apartheid crashing down and built a more equal nation in its place twenty years ago, and that have to continue to be part of this progress today and going forward.
Bobby Kennedy’s visit 50 years ago played a critical role in changing the tone and tempo of the anti-apartheid struggle at the time.
Margaret Marshall, a student activist then in South Africa, recalled that at the time of his visit in 1966, “the world seemed to ignore us. … But Bobby Kennedy was different. He reminded us… we were not alone. That we were part of a great and noble tradition, the re-affirmation of nobility in every human person. We all had felt alienated. It felt to me that what I was doing was small and meaningless. He put us back into the great sweep of history.”
Last week, speaking at the same university at which her father provided this vital infusion of optimism a half-century ago, Kerry Kennedy told us these ripples of hope didn’t have to come from governments, or militaries, or corporations – they can come from anyone, anywhere, from seemingly average people, just as was the case with Margaret Marshall five decades ago.
Today, they come from us. From the citizens we represent across this nation, and the people struggling across South Africa, to find, together, a better and brighter future.
In the months and years to come, the United States and South Africa can and should look to each other for lessons and inspirations as we continue to work to heal the damage of racial injustice, to reverse the trends of economic inequality, and to protect our experiments in democracy.
As South Africa prepares for upcoming municipal elections in August, and as we prepare for our own national elections in November, both nations are entering periods in our electoral history where our institutions of democracy and governance are being challenged.
Today, South Africa is showing just how important to the sustainment of democracy it is to have not just a charismatic, or world-historical, or forgiving heads of state, or individuals leading churches, but also a very strong public protector, independent judiciary, vibrant media, and engaged electorate.
In America and South Africa, I believe our institutions will protect and preserve our democracies.
These institutions must be, of course, inspired, led by courageous and principled individuals like Senator Kennedy, like Congressman Lewis, like President Mandela, but, Madame President, nations don’t endure because of individuals. Nations must endure because of strong institutions.
Two months after he returned to the United States, Kennedy reflected on his speech of 50 years ago today and said, “I acknowledged the United States, like other countries, still had far to go to keep the promises of our Constitution. What was important,” he said, “was that we were trying.”
And in 1991, when Nelson Mandela came here to speak, he told an American audience, “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”
The people of the United States must keep on trying to be true to our foundational values and documents, and the people of South Africa must, as well.
We must all keep on trying, as President Obama said, because “action and ideas are not enough. No matter how right, they must be chiseled into law and institutions” that will endure.
We have a lot of trying left to do.
And, Madame President, from last week I’ve concluded we have much to learn from each other – and much to teach the rest of the world.
So, let us rededicate ourselves, 50 years after Bobby Kennedy’s speech gave hope to South Africa and the world, to facing these challenges together.
Thank you, Madame President. I yield the floor.
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