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Burgess Owens
delivered 19 June 2019, Washington, D.C.
Thank you so much for -- for this opportunity. I’m going to take a different tack from [the] beginning. We are at this point -- this is not about black and white, rich and poor, blue collar, white collar. We're fighting for the heart and soul of our nation. We have a very, very special country [instilled with] the Judeo-Christian values that allowed every single generation to become better than the last and that has not ended, that has not stopped -- until now. We’re telling our kids a little bit something different, that they don’t have the opportunities that we had. I’m going to talk about some ideologies, and when I talk about them I’m not talking about people. People change. I used to be a Democrat until I did my history and found out the...misery that that party brought to my race. So when I talk about these ideologies, ideologies don’t change -- people do. We are fighting for the heart and soul of our nation against socialism, Marxism, and the evil it has brought to us and the stealing of our history. Karl Marx said it best...the father of socialism, an atheist, anti-Semite, and a blatant racist. We teach his philosophy in our school systems today. He said that, "The first battleground is rewriting of our history." You steal our history, you steal our pride and our past, our appreciation for our present, and our vision for our future. And every single urban city in our country is now experiencing that loss. Real quick history -- because these things were not taught. I’m blessed to [have] a great, great grandfather, Silas Burgess. Came here in the belly of a slave ship; sold in Charleston, South Carolina with his mother to the Burgess Plantation. An evil, evil man that drove my -- my great, great, great grandmother either to leaving her family, her kids, or committing suicide. I don’t know, she disappeared. When Silas at the eight of age -- age of eight, was blessed to be surrounded by men who believed in freedom. Even though they were shackled, they escaped. They went the southern route of the underground railroad, facilitated by white and Mexican Americans. And he's made his way south to Texas, end[ed] up being a successful entrepreneur, owned 102 acres of land, paid off in two years. Started the first black church, the first black elementary school; a pillar of his community -- eighteen kids, Christian, Republican. His first song was "Alpha Omega." Proud American. An example of what happens when any race, any culture is given hope, opportunity, and freedom. It didn’t end there by the way. The history of our black country, of our black America, has been stolen from us for decades almost over a century. Booker T. Washington, 1882, began Tuskegee University. By 1905, it was producing more self-made back millionaires than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton combined. The ’40s, ’50s and ’60s -- it was the black -- black community that lead our country in the growth of the middle class; lead our country in terms of men committed to marriage -- over 70 percent, now it’s 30 percent; lead our country in terms of community business ownership -- 40 percent, now it’s 3.8 percent; men matriculating from college, we now have more -- a higher percentage of men incarcerated [than] in college. It is -- by the way, my degree was Biology and that -- I learned a long time ago that slavery is not a gene in the DNA [double] helix. It’s our actions, it’s our attitude, it’s our belief. I do not believe in reparation, because what reparation does, it points to a certain race, a certain color and...points to it as evil and points the other race -- my race -- as one that has not only becomes racist but...also beggars. I do believe in restitution. Let’s point to the party that -- that was part of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow; that has killed over 40 percent of our black babies -- 20 million of them. State of California, 75 percent of our black boys cannot pass standard reading and writing tests, a democratic state. So, yes, let’s pay...restitution. How about the Democratic Party pay for all the misery brought to my race. And...after we learn our history, [if] they decide to stay there they should pay also. They’re complicit. And, every white American, Republican or Democrat, who feels guilty because of their white skin -- you just need to pony up also. That way we can get past this reparation and recognize that this country has given us greatness. Look at this panel. It doesn’t matter how we think. The fact is -- it doesn’t matter our color. We have become successful in this country like no other, because of this great opportunity to live the American Dream. Let’s not steal that from our kids by telling them they can’t do it.
See also; Burgess Owens Official Website Original Audio and Video Source: C-SPAN.org Transcript Note: Principal transcription by South Transcription Unlimited, Inc. | www.southtranscription.com | info@southtranscription.com | (+63) 920.921.8709. Supplementary transcription work and editorial oversight by Michael E. Eidenmuller. Diction and syntax in the verbal delivery of this speech are irregular in places. Consequently, the transcript's authenticity cannot be clearly specified.
Audio Note: AR-XE = American Rhetoric Extreme Enhancement
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