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Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I stand here today with a sober heart. I am a big believer that if America hasn't broken your heart, you probably don't love her enough.

We are here on the 1-year anniversary of one of our great Nation's moments of shame.

We saw a violent attack on this Capitol, ignited and incited by demagogues who were trying to spread a lie; telling people their votes were stolen by a President who broke with our traditions of a peaceful transfer of power and told his supporters to come to this building.

(Mr. VAN HOLLEN assumed the Chair.)

On that day of that vicious attack, we saw heroic actions by men and women who stood in the breach to try to protect the 535 Members of Congress, their staffs--the people in this body who do so much good to keep this Nation's traditions moving. As a result of that conflict, lives were lost. Brian Sicknick from my State died as a result of his injuries.

The feelings of that day are still with me. I was sitting right here next to friends and colleagues as we were told to stay in our seats, as we were told that the Capitol was under attack. I watched the basic decency of people in this room as staffers came in, in tears and in pain, and the comforting that I saw of some of my colleagues, and I watched other staff members protecting historic artifacts, protecting the very boxes that would ensure that our tradition would continue; that here on this Earth, a nation would be formed that values that highest ideals of humanity; that the people can come together and form amongst them a system of government.

We were escorted out that door, and I think the gravity of it really hit me when we came right out that door, and one of the first things I saw was an officer down.

I rushed over, and I said: ``What happened?''

He said: ``I was hit. I was hit.''

All along our retreat in that ignominious moment, all along that retreat, we saw officers injured.

I eventually walked and worked my way to my office, and I will never forget this moment as long as I live. I felt not just my own pain, but I thought immediately of my dad, and I felt the pain of my ancestors because, when I turned on that screen, the very first thing I saw was the Confederate flag, and it all came rushing to my heart, and I felt an ache and a hurt. My heart was broken.

I know that day shocked a lot of people, but when I saw that flag, it connected to a current of the dark eddies of our Nation's history that have persisted because violent mobs from the beginning of our country have tried to stop our democratic traditions.

That flag in so many communities in this country is carried by Klansmen, carried by those who took democratically elected officials-- Blacks in Southern States--ripped them from their offices, dragged judges out into the street, beat them, lynched them. That was their flag.

As I watched from my office, I saw swastikas. I saw Muslim hate. I talked to Black officers here, and as they defended the country they loved, they were repeatedly called the N-word over and over again. You can't be surprised. You just can't.

As we have always, in every generation, tried to make a more perfect union, this is part of that story--people who want to stop the march of democracy. Do you think that the suffrage movement didn't face violence? It did, as people tried to intimidate and beat and stop the equal franchise. Do you think the civil rights movement didn't face violence? How many martyrs' names do we know, people who were shot down and killed because they did not want them to have equal representation?

Why did I ache for my ancestors? Because those were the stories of my grandparents, those were the stories of my father, of the fear and intimidation of just trying to exercise their franchise.

Why are we surprised by demagoguery and hate in our Nation? It is a part of our story. But the greatness of our country is not that that existed but the good people who have come together in every generation and said: Not on our watch. We are better than this. We will pull together, out of the great, vast diversity of our Nation, a rainbow coalition of people dedicated not to a race or religion but to a national ideal.

I am here as a Senator, just the fourth Black person ever elected popularly in our Nation's history. I am here because White folks and Black folks and Asian folks and all Americans didn't just hope for a better democracy, didn't just condemn violence; they worked to preserve and protect and advance our Nation.

What are we doing now? Is this going to be a day where we just condemn what happened? Is this just going to be a day where we point fingers of blame and feel good in our contempt for those who were at the core of that? If that is what this day is about, it is for naught because we fail then to recognize this is not about a day. This was not 1 day. It was not one moment. It is a part of our story, and the threats continue. How can we be blind to the violence that has continued since that day?

Threats on Federal judges--we had a Federal judge's family shot and killed in my State. They are up 300, 400 percent. Threats on Members of this body, threats on all 535 Congresspeople are up around twofold.

Do you think this is about a day, when election officials, nonpartisan people, all across this country are now seeing threats? Reuters documented more than 850 threatening, hostile messages aimed at election officials. In Philadelphia, a Republican who dared to tell the truth about the election, mirroring the words of then-President Donald Trump's highest official that the election was fair--what happened to him? Threats and intimidation. People calling his home, literally threatening to murder his three children.

You think this is about 1 day in time?

A survey from the Brennan Center for Justice in April of 2021 found that one in three U.S. American election officials feels unsafe because of their job, and about 20 percent listed threats to their lives as a job-related concern.

This is not a foreign country. This is the United States of America, and our election officials, nonpartisan individuals--Republicans, Democrats, fellow Americans--are afraid to do their job because they tell the truth.

This is not about 1 day. This is not. This is a story of the founding of our country. As our Founders tried to break with the course of human events and establish here the greatest experiment of humanity, there were people who wanted authoritarianism; there were people who wanted bigotry; there were people who wanted to protect with violence the kind of despotism that we broke away from.

We make a big mistake if on this day, we just talk about what happened here. We have protection. We have security. But all across this country right now, there are believers in this democracy who have the same fears that my grandparents did, the same fears that my father did, the same fear that Blacks and Whites who joined arms to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge for voting rights did. This is a cancer. It has always been here. And we make a tragic mistake just by talking about this day, because when I survey the United States of America, I am so worried. There has never been a time in my life where I have been more worried about this democracy.

I grew up with stories of family members who talked about the preciousness about what it is to vote. They love the heroes of John F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers and these people who fought for them from all backgrounds. My parents taught me to love people--Jewish people, like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Joachim Prinz; people who knew that in America, if you just fight for your own rights, who are you? This is a nation where we know we are all in this.

But I stand here today to ask you, why aren't we talking about the fact that in States right now, laws are being passed specifically designed to disenfranchise people? Don't take my word for it. The year I came to this body, in 2013, a Federal judge in North Carolina looked at that voting law and said it was designed ``with surgical-like precision'' to disenfranchise Black Americans.

But I don't need to go back to 2013 to see reason for us all to be concerned. When early voting started in the fall of 2020 in Georgia, some voters had to wait up to 10 hours to vote in six metro areas in Georgia counties--six metro areas.

At polling places where minorities constituted more than 90 percent of active, registered voters, the average wait time in the evening for those Black communities was 51 minutes. When Whites comprised 90 percent, in those communities, the average wait time was 6 minutes. Think about this for a second. Are we satisfied with a democracy where in some communities, the Black communities will have to wait eight times longer to vote? Is that what we mean, equal justice under the law? Is that what we mean when we look at our flag and say ``liberty and justice for all''?

There are States right now passing voting laws to make it harder to vote. What happens when a working mom with three kids shows up, and the line is a 1-hour wait or a 2-hour wait? What does she do? Is it fair to her? Then they go as far in Georgia--say that person does want to wait and brings a folding chair and sits there for 2 and 3 and 4 hours. They make it illegal, for that person who might have diabetes, illegal, for that person who might have a mental condition, for someone to bring them water.

I am sorry. I grew up--and I confess it on the Senate floor--with the naive belief that the stories of my father and the stories of my grandparents were history; that we wouldn't live in a country where Black people are waiting eight, nine times the wait of White people; that in some communities, the wait would be 5, 6, 7 hours--a day's work for families who can't afford to give up a day's work.

You think this was about a day? I tell you it is about the cancer in our democracy that has been here from its start. This country's very survival has to be faced every generation. Democracy is not certain. It is not automatic. Democracy is hard.

Democracy takes work. Democracy takes sacrifice, but as we sit here now, in dozens of States, laws are being passed that disproportionately impact the disabled, that disproportionately impact Native Americans, and that disproportionately impact people of color.

So when I go back to the Confederate flag I saw waving just feet from where we stand right now--a flag that got so much currency during the backlash after Reconstruction and that got so much currency during the backlash after Brown v. Board of Education--I know it is part of a larger problem and that none of us who love our Nation and love this democracy can ever rest.

There are two people I want to mention before I conclude, both men I have come to admire. Both men risked their lives for this country. They weren't like our great, great veterans who fought nobly--and many of them died--but I hope we don't cheapen the truth of their stories because they did the work here at home, evidencing our highest values when our Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we must mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Both of these men happen to be Black, but it is a value that is evidenced in all backgrounds and all people. I am here because of that truth. Both of them were riddled with hateful words, called the N-word over and over and over again. One of those men I had the privilege of serving with, and both of these men were violently attacked. John Lewis was violently attacked as he tried to advance this democracy. He was beaten and had his head cracked open on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He was spit on at sit-ins, and he won battles with others. He came to Congress, and he worked and fought and defended.

Republicans and Democrats supported the voting rights bill, but then it was gutted by the Supreme Court. Maybe you will have the experience I have had of when your heroes become your friends. I would ask him how it felt to watch part of his life's work be torn apart and have these new voting laws that disproportionately impact African Americans. How did it feel?

John Lewis, who was this man of peace and this man of grace, just said to me: You cannot stop the work of this democracy. One generation's gains don't pass on like an inheritance to the next. They have to earn them.

The other person is a guy named Harry Dunn. Like John Lewis, he put his life on the line in defending the Capitol. He is a Capitol Police Officer. When I read and saw his interviews after battling to save our lives against a mob incited by a demagogic President, he was sitting under the Rotunda and turned to another person after being called the N-word over and over again and said simply: ``Is this America?''

I hope all of us see that we have a responsibility to answer that question.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act will be part of the answer to that question of whether a little Black boy and a little Black girl and a little White girl and a little White boy who go to vote with their parents can see an equal voting opportunity. That is going to be an answer to that question. Every generation has got to make this country live up to its promise. We are losing ground, and it didn't start on January 6 of last year.

I end with an answer, an inadequate answer, to Officer Dunn, in a poem I learned from my parents and in a poem I shared an affection for with John Lewis that calls upon every American not to point fingers of blame to others but to accept a responsibility not just to be satisfied in your contempt for some but to rise up as a force of light and love for all.

I end with Langston Hughes' poem: O, let America be America again-- The land that never has been yet-- [But] yet must be--the land where [everyone] is free . . . the poor [man], [Indian], [Negro], ME-- Who made America . . . Whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must [make this] mighty dream [live] again. O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be!

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