Transcript
0:00 THANK YOU. NOW, YOU ALL GOING TO HAVE TO BE A LITTLE QUIET CUZ I'M A LITTLE mad at you. You you invite me all the way out here to California and I have the same feeling that I hope many mayors have is when you get invited to cut a ribbon in front of this amazing edifice, of a building, a new school, a bridge, and they ask you to say a few words and cut a ribbon, but the whole time you're thinking to yourself is what the heck did I have to do with this? So many people came together and sacrificed and served and gave of their very essence to do something truly remarkable. You all are that edifice of accomplishment. You all have created something extraordinary. You all have so much to be proud of.
0:47 Now, this is the challenge for me. I've had a few minutes now to talk to some of the faculty, learn more about you. I I've been reading everything I can and I'm beginning to stand here and think what do I have to offer you all that you all haven't already evidenced in your extraordinary accomplishments and commitment. I thought about some of the most valuable advice I've gotten over the last four years or last at least eight years. There's Mayor Bloomberg in New York City who gave me my best political advice ever, which was first core you should become a billionaire, then become mayor of a city.
1:23 Advice I learned the hard way in my first campaign where I lost tremendously, a spectacular failure, and I advise you all, if you were going to fail spectacularly, have a documentary team there to capture it. But last night after arguing with the most aggressive atheist in all of the United States of America, Bill Maher, I decided maybe I would offer you all a prayer. And the simple prayer is this, is I would like for you all, and my prayer and hope is that you all be you.
1:59 My grandfather said that to me on graduation. He has this weird way every graduation saying these kind of same things over and over and over again. You know, boy, the tassel is worth the hassle. As I As I went on in in college and and got another degree and another degree, he goes like, "Boy, you got more degrees in the month of July. AND YOU'RE DEFINITELY NOT HOT." But he would always tell me, "I want you to have the courage to be you."
2:32 As life went on, I I began to think about that more and more and I realized that something that Abraham Lincoln said is so true. He said, "Everyone is born an original, but sadly most die copies." You see, this nation is yearning for you, starved for your authenticity, hungry for your originality. But the mistake we so often make is that we surrender our very being by copying that which is right or left. Alice Walker said that the greatest way and most common way that people give up their power is not recognizing they have it in the first place.
3:11 Let me give you an example that I learned as a teenager. I played high school football and this guy came in to give us a a lesson, a motivational speaker who said, "Everybody in the room, raise your hand as high as you can." And we all did it and then he said, "Okay, raise it 3 in higher." And everybody stood on their tiptoes and gave us this wonderful speech about you could always do a little bit more. Well, a couple years later, I was a freshman at Stanford University and I was working with a bunch of kids in an after-school program in East Palo Alto. It was the last day and I wanted to leave them with a message, so I relied on the words of this speaker and I got all the kids together and I said, "I want you to raise your hands as high as you can."
3:43 Now, these young people were extraordinary, but it was hot, they were tired, and they're like, "Man, we don't want to do that." One guy raises, "Put your hand down, he's got BO. What's up with that, corn? So, some of you I already see by what you're going on to do. Teaching and educating, you all probably have better ways of persuading young people. I resorted in a base form of persuasion often seen in politics called bribery, and I put my hand in my pocket and I pulled out a $5 bill and I said five bucks to the kid that can raise his hand the highest. Now, these kids didn't need a graduate degree in political science or social economy to understand what this was about, and they shot their hands up, and now we're comparing themselves to each other, looking to see who was getting it higher. Now, I looked over to the side and there was the shortest of all the kids, and actually the youngest. He was incredibly cute and had such a fiery personality, but now he just looked dejected. His arms were crossed, his face was all in a pout, and he looked like he had disappeared inside of himself as he was thinking hard about something. And then just when I was ready to walk over to them and say to him and say, "There, there. Don't worry about it. You're not as tall as them.
4:51 Don't worry." He turned around and sprinted out of the auditorium. I chased after him caught up to his little legs in about three bounds and picked him up, and he was wiggling and squirming around, and I'm holding him on, and and he says, "Let me go. Let me go." And I said, "No, no." And I turned him around and I said I said, "Where are you going? What's wrong?" And he looked at me hard and he said, "You said you'd give $5 to the kid that could raise his hand the highest, right?" And I said, "Yeah." And then he looked over at the kids and looked back at me, and with the wisdom that betrayed his age, he said, "Well, I know a way to get to the roof."
5:32 I gave him THE FIVE BUCKS. DO NOT GIVE IN TO THIS WORLD and let the world set your measure of what's great. Let the world set your standards. You have genius. You have greatness. You have glory. You have power inside of you that must be unleashed into the community. Do not settle. Do not yield. You have a truth that must be told.
6:04 This to me is the compromises that is too often made. Where people simply resign themselves to a world as it is. People just look at what's happening outside. And realize that they're just spectators in a crazy complex world that they have no power in. The greatest teachers of my life were truth told to me on my graduation. By that granddad. Who would come up to me and say, "Boy, never forget you can learn more from a woman on the fifth floor of the projects than you ever can from one of these fancy professors."
6:41 And indeed, when I answered the call calling of a great American philosopher named Chris Rock. Who once said in one of his comic routines, "Why is the most violent street in every city named for the man that stood for non-violence?" When I was a young law student that decided to move onto Martin Luther King Boulevard in Newark, New Jersey. Found a street that had actually great glory and great accomplishment. But I moved onto a section that was indeed violent. I lived there for months and in the first days I wanted to make a difference. But I was overcome by violent narcotics trade punctuated by violence. I saw decaying buildings. I saw a house used for drug addicts. I saw a challenges as I stood before these high-rise housing complex. And somebody said to me, "Cory, if you're going to organize here, if you're going to get involved, you need to meet the tenant president because she is the anchor of the community." And as I went to go to her door, I heard my grandfather's words because lo and behold, she lived on the fifth floor.
7:42 I knocked on her door, pulled up my pants like John Wayne, ready to have a conversation. She opened the door, she said, "Who are you?" And I said, "Ma'am, I'm Cory Booker from Yale Law School. I'm here to help you." And she looked at me, she said, "You want to help me?" I said, "Yes, I do." And she said, "Well, okay." She closed the door, she said, "Follow me." She walks down five flights of stairs, I follow after her, she walks through the courtyard, through some drug dealers, I walked very close to her at that point, and got right into the middle of the street, traffic going both ways. And she wheels around and she says, "Tell me, if you really want to help me, tell me what you see around you."
8:20 And I I look around, I go, "What do you mean?" She goes, "Describe what you see." And I said, "Okay, well, I see decaying buildings, I see an abandoned home." I I said, "I see guys involved in narcotics trade," which I said in a very respectful tone, and and and I described the neighborhood. And this powerful, dignified, African-American elder looked at me with such disappointment, bordering on disgust. She just shook her head and said, "You can't help me."
8:51 She turns around, and she just walking to the side of the road. I stand there bewildered and confused, weave through traffic, get to the side of the road, and I said, "What, ma'am? I'm sorry. What are you talking about?" And she wheels around, she was she is about 5 ft and a smidget, and she looks up at me at 6 ft 3, and at that point I I felt I was looking up to her, and she says to me, she goes, "Cory, you need to understand something.
9:13 The world you see outside of you is a reflection of what you have inside of you. And if you're one of those people who only sees problems and darkness and despair, that's all there's ever going to be. But if you're one of those people that no matter what, when you open your eyes, you see hope, you see opportunity, you see love, you see the face of God, then you can be someone who helps me.
9:46 She walks away. I look down and think to myself, "Okay, grasshopper, thus ended the lesson." I went back to her apartment the next day. I sat there for days watching this woman join with other women in those buildings and create light and transformation, be there for others. They would hold events for kids. Whatever the holiday was in a dank basement, that's what I saw, but they transformed at every opportunity they had into a celebration.
10:17 You name it, Flag Day, St. Patrick's Day, and there wasn't an Irish person within blocks of there. They changed the world. And out of those buildings came community activists, nonprofits. Out of those buildings that people turned by and drove by with disgust and disdain and disregard or fear, they created an oasis. This is the power that you have if you choose not to surrender it.
10:50 You can transform reality with your very thoughts. You have a choice in every moment of your life. This is the story of humanity. It is the great moment. Every second you can choose to accept conditions as they are or take responsibility for changing them. Victor Frankl, who writes in Man's Search for Meaning, to paraphrase him in that book, he says, "We who were in the concentration camps remember people who comforted others, who gave away their only piece of bread.
11:28 Theirs was a great testimony to the greatest of all human freedoms to choose your attitude in any given set of circumstances. Let me give you a less serious but smaller example and I'm telling you right now there are nothing small about this word. You know, I had to travel from Newark Airport to San Francisco Airport for 5 years that I was going to college out here. And I would get on that plane and I'm telling you right now when you're 6'3 and back then I was as large as I am now but I was chiseled then.
12:02 Imagine that if you will. Getting space next to you was a truly glorious find. And here I was one day on an airplane with a packed plane, loud, screaming, carry-on bags, people wrestling with each other but I had this oasis next to me, two open seats and the airplane door just closed and I got more religious than a Baptist minister, LOOKING UP AT GOD AND SAID, "THANK YOU, DEAR LORD. I AM YOUR FAVORITE SON TODAY."
12:36 And then just when I was getting going in my prayer and praise, the door of the plane opened. AND ALMOST AS IF SOMEBODY HOOKED UP A NUCLEAR power generator to a large speaker, the whole plane emanated with the screams of a child. And a woman walks on that plane there with a toddler and a woofer and tweeter in her arms brilliantly disguised as A BABY. AND SUDDENLY THE LOUD PLANE GOT silent and every passenger turned and looked AT ME.
13:11 AND NOW MY CONVERSATIONS WITH God were dramatically different. Dear Lord, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? This woman comes over and she says I'm sitting there and she sits down three bodies, two seats next to me. Chiseled or not, I was not happy. AND I REALIZED AT THAT POINT that this was a test. Every moment of your life, will you manifest your originality, your truth, your love?
13:42 And I said, you know what? This could either be the worst plane flight of my life or I could try to make it the best. And I turned to her and tried to make her smile cuz she actually did look really uncomfortable and embarrassed. I started talking with her and and soon I was playing games with the kid. The plane was taking off. We were playing tic-tac-toe. I unleashed every joke that I had on that poor 7-year-old.
14:06 Why does Tigger and Eeyore put their head in the toilet? Cuz they're LOOKING FOR POOH. I TRIED. I GAVE IT ALL I HAD. WE WERE HAVING A BLAST ON THIS FLIGHT, LAUGHING. I REMEMBER the movie that came on. It was Glory and she, like many young mothers, said, "I haven't been to the movies in weeks." And I said, "You've got to see this movie. I'll hold your baby." We had this amazing trip. We landed in San Francisco. It was the shortest flight I'd ever taken coast-to-coast. Time flew. We exchanged addresses. You know how you intend to keep in touch.
14:42 BUT WE DIDN'T. I WAS IN COLLEGE. I WAS SO BUSY. I GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE. FIVE YEARS PASSED. 10 YEARS PASSED. 15 years passed. I'm in the middle OF A STREET FIGHT. I'M RUNNING FOR MAYOR. THANK GOD THAT DOCUMENTARY TEAM WAS THERE TO CAPTURE IT. The documentary got nominated for Academy Award. Lost to March of the Penguins. I hate the flightless rodents, but that's a whole different speech.
15:13 Morgan Freeman can kiss my derrière. On the worst day, on the lowest moment, when we were getting definitely beaten and I was feeling like why were we in this? I get a letter in the mail saying you may not remember me, but 15 years ago I met you on an airplane from San Fran- from Newark to San Francisco. The kindness you expressed to me still is with me today. She went on talking about how that flight affected her, the first time flying with her children, how that kindness impacted her.
15:45 She told me that she owned a factory with her family in the city of Newark. She offered something that every politician in America loves, a campaign contribution. That young toddler that I tortured with some of the best jokes ever told ended up being an amazing volunteer on my campaign. What you put out in this universe does not die. You may be taken FROM THIS EARTH.
16:17 PEOPLE MAY FORGET YOUR NAME, but your love will live forever. I now know more than ever that this is the power we cannot give up. These are the abilities that make real changes. I see it in the heroes I get to serve with every single day in Newark. People that manifest who they are, not through what they say, but what they do.
16:49 There's a man in a high-rise in Newark, New Jersey. I was with him last week. I didn't get to know him until he did something that was just odd. He got a stimulus check in the mail and thought about it. Outside of his window from the high-rises there was this lot overgrown with weeds and debris that was being used for a virulent drug trade. He looked at his stimulus check and instead of buying a flat screen TV or going out to dinner with friends, he went out and bought a lawnmower.
17:16 Goes right into that lot, Doesn't talk to the drug dealers, but just starts mowing the lawn. The first day he messed up and actually bagged their stash, so the guys were there trying to get it. But, he got up day after day and manicured that lot. Put his spirit and mixed it with the soil soil of that space. It looked beautiful. Weed whacking it, and soon the drug dealers left. He became a hero in his neighborhood. We found him because he was mowing the lawn along the median of a street, and we stopped him and said, "What are you doing?"
17:51 And he said, "Look, this street is mine as it much as it is anybody else's. I am responsible." I'm telling you right now, life will deliver you joy and happiness and moments of exaltation like this, but I also promise you you will face darkness and pain and even God forbid you tragedy. There will be days that just taking a breath feels like a momentous effort and getting out of bed feels like climbing a mountain.
18:26 I'm telling you those more than the joy and the pleasure, those will be the moments that are most valuable in your journey. Those will be the moments that you discover the truth of who you are. In the depths of darkness, you will find that you have an inextinguishable light in your heart. In the most cold winter, you will discover that within you is an invincible spring. This is who you are. And when you meet those moments what you do there will not just be defining you, but it will give liberation and light to all those who bear witness to your being.
19:06 A friend of mine was coming out of a diner. He met And him and his friend met an assailant. He watched as his friend was shot and murdered before his eyes. The gunman turned the gun on him. He was shot three times in the side of his face, in his shoulder, and in the side of his stomach, and he put his head down and charged the assailant, tackling him and holding him on the pavement until the police arrived as he bled that sidewalk red.
19:31 I visited him in the in the in the hospital, and like I've done at least a dozen times as mayor, I'm seeing bodies broken of firemen, policemen, auto accidents. He looks up at me, body broken, but his spirit was on fire. He made me walk out of the hospital without me giving him comfort. He told me, "Mayor, it's going to be okay, but we're not defined in individual moments." As great as that moment showed the truth of who he was, I walked out of that hospital. Months later, I get a call that this man recovered from his injuries.
20:04 Had decided that he was going to join the Newark Police Academy because he was going to make sure that no one else faced what he faced. Day after day, he would get up and do what is necessary because life is not about the big moment, the great speech. Life is about every single day getting up to manifest your truth and in actions that are not required of you or demanded of you, showing small, consistent acts of kindness and decency and love that in the aggregate add up to tremendous change.
20:44 This is, to me, what power is about. When you're unyielding in your love. I told you about graduations, and let me end with this vignette. Some of you consider yourself lucky because my family at graduation days was unbelievable. When they had only a certain amount of tickets to give out to families. I got caught up in at graduation's counterfeit ticket scandal. Cuz my parents and family and cousins was going to be there no matter what.
21:18 We're the only family in America that has been sanctioned by the FAA because at during one night graduation my gaggle of family created one sustained flash burst with all their multiple cameras that had blinded incoming planes coming to land in Newark Airport. And my grandfather who met me on those graduations, who imparted his jokes, who imparted his wisdom, who challenged me to live my truth to be me. He was my greatest hero.
21:51 You see, my grandfather was born to a single mother, African-American woman deep in Louisiana. He was born to a white father that he never met except for once, and he wasn't even told about it till after the fact. He faced real challenges of vicious vicious Jim Crow and divisions that went to the core of our country's ideals. He faced terrible health problems at an early age. He worked in Ford motor plants on assembly lines, was a union organizer, was a teacher, worked here in California on airplanes. He worked three and four jobs raising his family.
22:28 He was an entrepreneur and started businesses where he would collect quarters and buy yet another machine to wash clothes and collect quarters and buy yet another, eventually investing in real estate and made some money. Eventually moved out to Las Vegas and in his interesting humor when he did he said, "Son, always bet on black." And I said, "Okay, okay, granddad. Okay." And he was living large out there in Vegas. He faced cancer a number of times and on one of his battles where he was beating that beast back it looks like he he struggling.
23:01 I remember helping him in bed and he looks up at me just before I said goodbye before flying back to New Jersey and he said, "Son, I love you. I love you and I love your children and I love your grandchildren." And I thought he was delirious and confused me because I don't have any children and therefore they don't have any children and I thought he must have been thinking he was looking at one of his children.
23:25 But I left with love in my heart. I got home and got caught up in that 2002 political campaign and I'll never forget the day that I got the call as I was rushing to a campaign stop from a relative that told me to call my grand mother because my grandfather was dead. And I remember pulling off to the side of the road and just weeping and weeping, feeling such a depth of sorrow, much of which honestly I still feel today.
23:52 But as I looked for something to grasp upon, I I found those words of my grandfather. He said he loved me. He loved my children and my children's children. You see, this is how so many of our family members live. They live with a courageous love that they just don't love you, they love children yet unborn. They love people whose names they don't even know yet. It's this love that has sustained this young nation. People who fought against slavery and subjugation, who loved so much that they gave life to us who stand here.
24:28 People who loved so hard that they left their their farms and their cities to join Washington's army and so many other military campaigns, who stood on beaches in Normandy showing their courage and their love. People who love in ways that rarely get in papers, who love themselves and their families through drug addictions. They love themselves and their families through two and three jobs. They love so much that they're going to continue to infuse jobs, no matter how humble, with their very essence so that their community can continue.
25:04 This is the love that calls to our consciousness. This is the love that has provided us our existence. We, as a people, drink deeply from wells of freedom and liberty that we did not dig. We eat lavishly from banquet tables prepared by the loving hands of our ancestors who could scarcely imagine our existence, but we owe it to them. This is that love. People who live their truth.
25:36 People who show their authenticity. And so now I end with these words. Be you, but never forget you are part of a collective. Never forget you are part of a community. Never forget you are part of a nation. Never forget that you're part of a human family. Don't be one of those people who stands on top of a mast like a flag beating in the wind, making noise and showing your colors, but not helping us move anywhere.
26:06 Be that piece of fabric a little below that flag. Clinging to the mast, you are a sail that very fabric of your being you're manifesting not by dancing in the wind whichever way it blows, but you're facing it. And because of your courage, you're helping the whole ship move forward. There are ideals. There are ideals that got us here that were lived. I end with a poem that my parents read to me as a boy challenging me to live this way or daring me to stand up by Langston Hughes who simply said, "Oh, let America be America again.
26:45 The land that never has been yet, but yet must be the land where everyone is free. The poor man, the Indian, the Negro, me. Who made America? Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, whose hand on the foundry, whose plow in the rain must make our mighty dream live again. Oh, yes, I say it plain. America never was America to me, but I swear this oath America will be. Class of 2010, you must swear. Swear not to die a copy. Swear not to live a lie.
27:22 Swear that you will declare your truth every day in ways big and most importantly in ways small. Swear that you will make conscious choices and infuse your being in those ordinary moments so that they might resound with your love. And if we do this, class of 2010, we will transform our world. We will advance the human family. We'll make real on the promise of our country and we in the collective will have shown that we found a way to the roof. Thank you.