Remarks by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Memorial...

Remarks by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr.
Memorial Lecture Luncheon at the NAACP's Centennial Convention

NEW YORK, July 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following are the remarks by
Attorney General Eric Holder at the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Memorial Lecture
Luncheon at the NAACP's centennial convention:

Thank you, Judge Blackburne, for that kind introduction. It is a special
privilege to be with you here, as we honor the lives of Clarence Mitchell, Jr.
and Juanita Jackson Mitchell, two stalwarts in the cause of equal justice. We
are also here to honor the organization that they served so long and so
faithfully. As the NAACP celebrates its centennial convention, we pay tribute
to its unwavering demand that our nation honor the truth contained in the
document that declared its independence: "that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

The Reconstruction Amendments enshrined this ideal in our Constitution more
than forty years before the NAACP was born. But while our nation had embraced
equality in principle, it was unwilling to accept equality in fact. The
Fourteenth Amendment's guarantees of due process and equal protection under
law were still denied to millions of African-Americans, and our nation's
highest court had proclaimed "separate but equal" the law of the land. The
federal government was still decades away from its first successful
prosecution for lynching. And while the Fifteenth Amendment had opened the
voting booth to millions of African-Americans, several states had devised
schemes to keep the franchise locked away. In the years before the NAACP began
its work in 1909, our laws were routinely subverted or ignored to deny the
legal rights to which African-Americans were entitled.

That fact was made violently clear one year earlier, when Springfield, Ill.,
the hometown of the Great Emancipator himself, endured a horrific episode of
racial violence. Houses and businesses were burned. Men were murdered and
families driven from their homes. Only the intervention of thousands of troops
ended the rampage.

But in the wake of that violence, a group of men and women - of different
races and religions - joined together to form the organization that would
become the NAACP. They set themselves to the monumental task of reconciling
our nation's laws and practices with its highest ideals, and eradicating the
legal underpinnings of Jim Crow that denied millions of Americans the
opportunity to achieve their full potential.

In courtrooms, legislatures and communities across this great nation, the men
and women of the NAACP have championed the cause of racial equality for the
last hundred years. They did so when few others would join the fight. They did
so in the face of determined opposition and the threat of deadly violence.
They did so against all odds. They persisted. They persevered. Ultimately,
they succeeded. And they continue to do so today.

The men and women who charted this course are well known to history: W.E.B.
DuBois; Mary White Ovington; Dr. Henry Moskowitz; and Ida B. Wells-Barnett and
others. So too are the legal and legislative victories that their foresight
and tenacity made possible.

And though the struggle for racial equality did not begin with the founding of
the NAACP, few organizations have done as much to advance the cause of
equality as this one. Few have had as direct, or as lasting, an impact on the
course of our nation's history or on the evolution of our laws.

We are all the beneficiaries of the men and women who founded the NAACP, and
of those who have carried on its work over the last century. Their legacy is
in our laws and in the lives of millions of Americans who enjoy opportunities
today that did not exist a century ago.

Their legacy lives wherever children have the chance to learn together,
regardless of their race.

Their legacy lives whenever we make our laws more fair, and whenever we fairly
enforce them.

Their legacy lives in the opportunity to seek - and to win - the highest
office in the land.

This opportunity has a special resonance this year. For who would have dared
to dream in 1908, while the fires of Springfield still smoldered, that one
hundred years later an African-American would come to that city to declare his
candidacy for President the United States? Or that earlier this year, that
candidate would stand on the steps of our nation's Capital - connected by a
sea of humanity to the memorial where Lincoln keeps a watchful eye on the
Union he saved - to take the Oath of Office?

In the century since Springfield, our nation has achieved unprecedented
changes - in its laws and in the hearts of its people. Every American should
take justifiable pride in that fact. But we must resist the temptation to
conclude that our nation has fulfilled its promise of full equality based on
one moment or on one election. We know better than that. The effort to
harmonize our laws with our best ideals is not yet done. We still have work to
do. And some of that work will be done by the Justice Department that I am so
honored to lead.

We must keep working to bring those who commit bias-motivated crimes to
justice. Last month I testified before the Senate in support of "The Matthew
Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009." And, in fact, more than 11 years
ago, when I was Deputy Attorney General, I testified before Congress that
similar legislation was necessary. Eleven years is too long to wait for the
tools necessary to protect all Americans from the most heinous forms of
bias-motivated violence. I urge all Americans to stand with the President and
with the Department of Justice in support of this important legislation.

Likewise, we must keep working to build a more effective, more efficient, more
equitable system of criminal justice. A system of justice that focuses not
just on punishing criminals, but also on preventing crime. A system of justice
that focuses not just on locking people away, but also on integrating former
offenders back into their communities so they can build productive,
law-abiding lives. And, a system of justice that applies the same penalties
for offenses involving cocaine - regardless of its form.

I have seen first-hand the effect that disparities in drug sentences have had
on our communities. In my career as a prosecutor and judge, I saw too often
the cost borne by the community when promising, capable young people
sacrificed years of their futures for non-violent offenses. Let me be clear:
the Department of Justice will never back down from its duty to protect our
citizens and our neighborhoods from drugs, or from the violence that
all-too-often accompanies the drug trade. But we must discharge this duty in a
way that protects our communities as well as the public's confidence in the
justice system.

It is not justice to hand down disparate prison sentences for materially
similar crimes. It is not justice to continue our adherence to a sentencing
scheme that disproportionately affects some Americans, and some communities,
more severely than others. Our goal is simple: to ensure that our sentencing
system is tough and predictable, but also fair.

We must also keep working to ensure that the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division has the tools it needs to defend the hard-won progress of the civil
rights era, progress that the NAACP fought so hard to achieve. Four months
ago, I traveled to Selma, Ala., to help commemorate the forty-fourth
anniversary of Bloody Sunday. I promised then that the Civil Rights Division
would live up to its "long, proud history;" that it would "fight
discrimination and inequality just as fiercely as the Criminal Division fights
crime;" in short, that it would "reflect the spirit of the movement that
inspired its creation." This has been one of my highest priorities since my
return to the Justice Department, and I remain committed to providing the
Civil Rights Division with the attention, the resources, and the leadership
that its dedicated professionals deserve. Today, I can proudly report that the
Civil Rights Division is back and is open for business.

All of these steps are critical. But changing the law can only create a path -
it cannot bring us to our final destination. The goal of full equality cannot
be mandated by the government or achieved by the courts alone. To reach this
goal, all of us must take responsibility for ourselves, for our choices, and
for our futures. We must renew our commitment to capitalize on the
opportunities provided by so many who sacrificed so much. All of us must find
the courage to confront these issues in our own lives.

So as we celebrate the magnificent success of the NAACP's first century, let
us recognize that the next century will be less about changing our laws than
about changing ourselves.

Ten years ago, I addressed the NAACP's convention, and expressed my view that
"we must begin to insist again that everyone be held accountable for his or
her own actions. 'Personal responsibility' must once again become the constant
refrain and the guiding principle of our society." A decade later, I believe
this to be true now more than ever.

The answers to many of the problems that confront some of our nation's most
vulnerable communities of color can be found within those very communities. We
must be prepared to ask ourselves difficult questions and to face tough
truths. We must be prepared to do what is necessary to justify our parents'
and grandparents' investment in the struggle for civil rights. We owe this to
the people and to the organization that we honor here today.

And we also owe it to future generations of Americans who will inherit the
nation we leave to them. My 11 year-old son is here with me today, and as I
think about him and his sisters I know that the struggle that we have yet to
win must continue to be fought.

Our laws can guarantee that every child has equal access to an education. But
access alone cannot make a child pick up a book. That is the responsibility of
every parent.

Our laws can guarantee an equal opportunity to vote. But opportunity alone
cannot make a person take the time to register and cast a ballot. That is the
responsibility of every citizen.

Our laws can ensure the chance to excel and lay the foundation for a safer
society. But law alone cannot make people take pride in their communities or
in themselves. That is the responsibility of every neighbor, of every family
member and of every friend.

As DuBois once said, "There is in this world no such force as the force of a
person determined to rise." It is up to each of us to seize the opportunities
before us and to do our part to make the dream of full equality a reality.

Some here are too young to recall the obstacles of the past. They can barely
imagine a world in which people were barred from classrooms, lunch counters
and voting booths because of their race. A world in which people could be
threatened, beaten or murdered for exercising their fundamental rights.

When future generations assess the nation that they inherit from us, they will
surely note that we faced fewer challenges and enjoyed more opportunities than
the generations that preceded us. What will we have made of these
opportunities? If we muster the courage to take responsibility for ourselves -
for our neighbors and our communities - then we will have made our nation's
soaring ideals a reality for all of us. And we will have left behind a legacy
that pays fitting tribute to all of the men and women whose sacrifices made
this day possible.

We marvel at the differences between our world and the world as it was a
century ago. By determined action, let us bless our children and our
grandchildren by extending to them, unbowed and unbroken, another century of
remarkable progress.

Thank you.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, +1-202-514-2007, TDD,
+1-202-514-1888