Cory Booker tells Morristown MLK audience it’s time to speak up

Sen. Cory Booker addresses 30th annual Morris Interfaith Breakfast on Martin Luther King Day, 2015. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Sen. Cory Booker addresses 30th annual Morris Interfaith Breakfast on Martin Luther King Day, 2015. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
0

Video: Sen.Cory Booker MLK speech in Morristown

Borrowing a phrase from Cornell West, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) on Monday told a Martin Luther King Day audience in Morristown that it’s time to stop the “Santa Claus-ification” of the martyred civil rights leader and resume the hard work of his movement.

“This dream [of King’s] was not a dream of comfort or convenience. It was uncomfortable, it was difficult, it was reviled,” said Booker, who challenged the diverse audience to forget the labels that divide Americans and focus on fixing a broken justice system and other problems of the “distraught present.”

At the time of his assassination in 1968, King was “immensely unpopular” for speaking out against poverty and the Vietnam War, the former Newark mayor reminded listeners who packed a ballroom at the Hyatt Morristown for the 30th annual Morris Interfaith Breakfast.

FULL CIRCLE

Booker, one of two African Americans in the Senate, said the United States has the dubious distinction of incarcerating more people than any other nation.

“We have come full circle,” he said. “There are now more blacks under criminal supervision in America than all the slaves in 1850.”

Harsh drug laws are creating a caste system of convicted felons who cannot re-enter society, said the former Rhodes scholar, who got laughs when he refused to confirm or deny whether he ever had smelled marijuana smoke as a Stanford student.

Sen. Cory Booker addresses 30th annual Morris Interfaith Breakfast on Martin Luther King Day, 2015. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Sen. Cory Booker addresses 30th annual Morris Interfaith Breakfast on Martin Luther King Day, 2015. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

Yet the grim news during his mayoral tenure in Newark, he said, was that the average murder victim had been arrested 10 times.

For too many, he said, “the end of the system is death or long imprisonment.”

During a nearly 40-minute speech delivered without notes, Booker did not mention the police shootings of blacks in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island that sparked demonstrations around the country, including in Morristown and Madison.

But the 45-year-old lawmaker, a believer in data-driven analyses, tossed out a glaring statistic.

While praising police for daily heroism, he cited a ProPublica study that found young black males are 21 times more likely  than whites to get shot dead by police.

Sen. Cory Booker signs autograph for Felicia Jamison as Msgr. John Hart looks on, at Morris Interfaith Breakfast, Martin Luther King Day 2015 in Morristown. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Sen. Cory Booker signs autograph for Felicia Jamison as Msgr. John Hart looks on, at Morris Interfaith Breakfast, Martin Luther King Day 2015 in Morristown. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

“I want to give you a message this morning that is not about adulation and celebration, but about urgency. That we get onto the field, as King did,” Booker said.

“The movement was great not because of him. It was foot soldiers, blacks and whites, Christians and Jews, who were marching, who were doing freedom rides, who were doing voter registrations… giving sacrifice forward.”

Booker said he must do more, too.

When he lived in Newark’s tough Brick Towers, he mentored youths who hung out in the lobby. Until he grew too busy with his mayoral campaigning and duties.

One day, after giving a speech at a Newark shooting scene, Booker learned that the victim had been a boy from his Brick Towers lobby.

“He so reminded me of my dad. Handsome, charisma, smart… who God put in front of me every day… [and] was now one of my statistics, was now my data, was now a bloodstain on the sidewalk.”

Please click icon below for captions.

‘TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW’

Martin Luther King may have been unpopular in 1968. But Cory Booker’s popularity was not an issue on this day.

The Democratic senator, who was invited by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, a Republican who represents Morristown, was welcomed like a pop star at an event that marked several other milestones.

Felicia Jamison is stepping down after chairing MLK ceremonies in Morristown for 45 years. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Felicia Jamison is stepping down after chairing MLK ceremonies in Morristown for 45 years. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

“That was the best speech” ever at the Interfaith Breakfast, said Felicia Jamison, who is stepping down after 45 years as chair of the Morristown’s Martin Luther King Observance Committee.

“I’m tired. I did my best. That’s all you can do,” Jamison said of her tenure.

It also was the last Interfaith Breakfast for Rabbi Donald Rossoff, who is leaving Morristown’s Temple B’Nai Or this year after a quarter-century there.

A couple of other speeches were noteworthy as well. Pastor Sidney Williams Jr. of Bethel A.M.E. Church charged that Morris County schools have been insensitive to minority students in the wake of the national controversy over police violence against blacks.

And 10-year-old Mankara Rivera-Stanley, of the Morris chapter of the New Jersey Orators, gave an inspirational stem-winder, “I Am a Champion.”  Booker called it “a tough act to follow.”  His only advice to the boy:

“If you want to go far in life, young man, shave your head.”

Stay tuned for more coverage.

MORE FROM MLK DAY 2015

LEAVE A REPLY