CHARLESTON, S.C. - This morning at Emanuel AME Church, Cory Booker delivered the speech on gun violence and the rising tide of hatred and white nationalism in the United States that President Trump is unable to.
Booker called for honesty about who we are and who we have been as a country -- which means acknowledging that white supremacy has always been a problem, if not always at the surface then lurking not far beneath it.
Watch Booker's full speech here, and read excerpts of the coverage below.
New York Times: Cory Booker on White Supremacy: ‘There Is No Neutrality in This Fight’
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey called on Wednesday for a national crusade against gun violence and a moral reckoning with the strains of white supremacy “ingrained in our politics since our founding,” as demands for government action continued to mount after two gun massacres last weekend in Texas and Ohio.
Standing in the sanctuary of Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one floor above the site of the 2015 attack by a white supremacist who murdered nine black people, Mr. Booker said the present moment amounted to a national crisis in which Americans must choose sides and confront their own past.
“Racist violence has always been part of the American story, never more so than in times of transition and times of rapid social change,” Mr. Booker said, describing the country as facing a “crossroads.”
“There is no neutrality in this fight,” he said. “You are either an agent of justice or you are contributing to the problem.”
Mr. Booker’s address began a day that promised to renew the Democratic presidential candidates’ denunciations of President Trump, for his opposition to gun control and his caustic rhetoric about race and immigration. Later on, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. planned to deliver remarks in Iowa about the problem of white nationalism, and former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas was also expected to be in the spotlight as Mr. Trump visited his native city, El Paso.
Though his speech did not mention Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Booker left no doubt that he laid responsibility for the rise in hate crimes with the occupant of “the highest office in our land.” The hatred that motivated a racist gunman in Texas to kill 22 people, Mr. Booker said, “was sowed by those who spoke the same words the El Paso murderer did: warning of an ‘invasion.’”
Buzzfeed News: Cory Booker Says White Supremacy Is Fueled By A “Dangerous Tolerance”
Cory Booker stood in the well in the hallowed walls of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday morning and challenged Americans to act on its gun violence epidemic, just days after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that killed at least 31 people and brought the country to a grieving halt.
Booker offered a lyrical and, at times, spirited speech, that oriented an intersectional message on the dangers white supremacy and gun violence pose to America.
“We must acknowledge as a country that as much as white supremacy manifests itself in dangerous and deadly acts of terror, it is perpetuated by what is too often a willful ignorance or dangerous tolerance of its presence in our society,” Booker, the fourth black American ever popularly-elected to the US Senate and now one of two top black candidates for president, said. “And the twisted irony of this poison is it’s corrosive, it hurts the very people it claims to represent.”
Booker reiterated his support for an assault weapons ban and called for a requirement for federal law enforcement to track domestic-born terrorist threats by white supremacists and report their findings annually. Earlier in his campaign, Booker had proposed a federal gun licensing program and closing the so-called “Charleston loophole” that essentially allow some weapons to be obtained by consumers before routine background checks are complete. That change is meant to commemorate the nine people who were brutally murdered here by a 21-year-old in 2015. The bill was sponsored by South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking black Democrat in the House of Representatives.
CNN: Cory Booker makes impassioned call to confront rising hate at site of 2015 Charleston massacre
Sen. Cory Booker on Wednesday urged love and legislation to counter a rising tide of hate and gun violence in America, warning in an impassioned speech that "the future of the country hangs in the balance."
"There is no neutrality in this fight," Booker said. "You are either an agent of justice or you are contributing to the problem."
The Democratic presidential candidate delivered his message from a hallowed patch of ground: the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the site of a 2015 massacre that left nine African Americans dead. The shooter in that event, Dylann Roof, was convicted of federal hate crimes in 2016.
As the nation mourns two more mass shootings in recent days in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas -- the latter motivated by white supremacist ideology -- Booker said the country "must step outside our comfort zones and confront ourselves, to ask the hard questions and genuinely seek answers."
Booker's speech comes as the issues of gun violence and racism have been thrust to the center of the 2020 presidential race, with President Donald Trump set to visit Dayton and El Paso on Wednesday, even as some local leaders have urged him to stay home, including former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who hails from the border city.
Washington Post: Opinion: Cory Booker delivers an impassioned — and impressive — speech in Charleston
On Wednesday morning, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) went to the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., where, four years ago, white supremacist Dylann Roof fatally shot nine people at a Bible study class. (Roof is not insane. He was found guilty of murder and has been sentenced to death.) Booker delivered a speech addressing white nationalism and gun violence in sweeping, often poetic terms.
Booker began by talking about the “profound contradiction” at the founding the country — the establishment of a democracy at time blacks were counted as three-fifths of a person. But his intent was not a history lesson; rather, he wanted to strike an uplifting and unifying message in tone and substance evocative of President Barack Obama, who spoke at the church in the wake of the killings in June 2015.
Obama is a hard act to follow, but Booker certainly hit his stride on Wednesday. For a candidate whose frequent references to “love” and 'unity" seem misplaced in a time of political acrimony, he was able to tie that message to the demands of the moment. It is not enough, he said, to not be a racist. One must be "antiracism," he said. In that sense, silence is unacceptable and “to be passive is to be complicit."
The State: At Mother Emanuel, Cory Booker calls to close ‘Charleston loophole’
From the pulpit of the Charleston church were nine African American worshipers were killed four years ago, Democratic presidential hopeful Cory Booker called on his fellow lawmakers to close the federal loophole named after the South Carolina city.
As the congregants gathered at Mother Emanuel AME Church Wednesday applauded, Booker called for the removal of “weapons of war” from public spaces like grocery stores, bars, places of worship and schools. He called for strengthening gun regulations — “a policy that we know will save lives.”
The New Jersey U.S. senator urged leaders to pass legislation brought forward by South Carolina’s U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Columbia Democrat and majority whip in the U.S. House.
“We have the power to act. And we can act to legislate safety even if we cannot legislate love,” Booker said. “And that includes Jim Clyburn’s legislation to close the loophole that enabled one man to take nine souls from this congregation.”
LA Times: Cory Booker on gun violence: ‘Who we are hangs in the balance’
Standing in the Charleston, S.C., church where a white supremacist murdered nine black people in 2015, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker called for concrete measures on gun safety Wednesday while challenging all Americans to confront the nation’s history of bigotry against minorities and immigrants.
“People’s very lives are in the balance,” Booker told the audience gathered at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Dylann Roof murdered worshippers there in 2015. The church, which itself was once burned down by white supremacists and rebuilt, continues to draw visitors who come to pay respects to those killed.
“We must change our laws but also confront our past,” Booker said.
Booker’s remarks came in response to last weekend’s massacres in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, by gunmen using assault-style weapons that killed 31 people and wounded dozens more.
USA Today: Booker denounces white supremacy at 2015 Charleston shooting site as Trump visits El Paso and Dayton
Standing in an iconic black church in Charleston, S.C., where a white supremacist killed nine people in June 2015, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., spoke on how "racist violence has always been part of the American story."
The Democratic presidential candidate's speech at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church hit on white supremacy's evils while highlighting racism's role in U.S. history.
"We need to be honest: about not just who we are, but who we have been," Booker said. "That means we need to acknowledge that the very founding of our country was an act of profound contradiction. Those who sought freedom in so many ways, for so many people, perpetuated its very opposite."
Booker's trip to Charleston came as President Donald Trump makes visits to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, where mass shootings over the weekend killed 31 people.
NJ.com: Booker says ‘future of the country hangs in the balance’ after mass shootings
Cory Booker warned that the “future of the country hangs in the balance” unless the U.S. acts to address white supremacism and keep guns out of the hands of those wanting to commit mass murder.
“There is no neutrality in this fight,” said Booker, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. “You are either an agent of justice or you are contributing to the problem.”
Booker spoke at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, the same church where Dylann Root, a white supremacist, gunned down black nine worshippers in 2015. Root was sentenced to death.
His speech followed the weekend mass shootings that killed 22 people in El Paso, Texas, and 9 in Dayton, Ohio. The gunman in El Paso had complained about an immigrant invasion.
“People’s very lives are in the balance,” Booker said. “And to be frank, the future of our country hangs in the balance, the character and culture of who we are hangs in the balance.”
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